As chief of staff, Baker had been emphatic: “The most important word in the title is staff.” Regan had other ideas. “He wanted the job because he thought it would serve him well: that he would be the star,” recalls Tom Brokaw. “He was frustrated [at Treasury] because he was on the outside looking in. And he didn’t appreciate that the reason Jim was so successful was the discretion he used in how he ran the White House. It was a complete misreading on Regan’s part of what the chief of staff’s job meant.” Ideally, the chief is the COO to the president’s CEO. “Regan thought he was the CEO,” says
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