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Art Quern, business executive, January 1984
By MIKE LAWRENCE

SERVICE
in capitals:
Art Quern's
public life

Arthur F. Quern resigned in November as Gov. James R. Thompson's chief of staff and director of governmental operations after serving since September 1979. One of the "bright young men" in Thompson's administration, he had been an aide to Rockefeller and Ford. Now vice president of administration for Rollins Burdick Hunter, a Chicago-based, multinational insurance brokerage company, Quern recalls with pride the men he's served.

ART QUERN on Nelson Rockefeller: "He was dynamic, always thinking in a big, global perspective. He considered himself a problem solver. He loved to be thrown into the most complex situation and try to pull the 10 best people in the world into a room, pick their brains, come up with a solution and then politically sell it."

Art Quern on Gerald Ford: "A down-to-earth guy, he was smarter than many of the press people gave him credit for. He cared enormously about the country, and it was a time when those kinds of emotions came to the fore because of the Watergate scandal. He was immensely interested in individuals and how government affected them. I can remember sitting there and talking about this health program that we had, and he wanted to know how it affected the guy who owns the hardware store in Grand Rapids."

Art Quern on Jim Thompson: "A delightful guy personally, he cares about things strongly and yet only seems to be worked up about a few things. He has an uncanny ability to hear everything when you think he's not listening. You can look at his eyes and you think he's not functioning. But all of a sudden, three days later or sometimes three months later, he'll mention something that you said to him in that period and you realize he heard every word of it."

Arthur F. Quern advised all of them — the ebullient Rockefeller, the genuine Ford, the personable and absorbent Thompson — during an intense, decade-and-a-half love affair with public service. It began in Albany in an expansive eastern state administration operating at a peak period of government growth.

It continued at the White House in an administration bent on fortifying shaken faith in government. It concluded in a Springfield administration that made occasionally wrenching decisions about where government should recede. But, despite the diversity, there were the constant, common elements of challenge, of dealing with the great issues, of working with political leaders he respected. It was, in short, quite a run for a gent who stumbled into a mistakenly opened back door.

Quern, now 41, was attending graduate school at State University of New York at Albany on his way toward becoming a history professor when he was summoned in the late '60s to a session with two gubernatorial aides. Gov. Rockefeller was gearing up for another reelection shot in New York. That meant he was shifting many top assistants to his campaign staff and that others were needed to "babysit the governor's office, kind of keep things rolling, not make any big decisions," Quern recalls. His name had been submitted by the state budget chief, who did not want to surrender any of his own troops and had chatted with Quern at a party.

April 1984/Illinois Issues/19


"In the first interview," says Quern, "they could tell I didn't know beans, and they were raising their eyebrows and trying to figure out what was going on. But here I had been sent in by Norm Hurd, who was a very influential guy, an important guy who had been Tom Dewey's budget director and a professor of agricultural economics and been part of the Republican structure for years."

So, as Quern was later to learn, a second interview was arranged and he was to be "let down easy," to be told he was a "bright, young guy" who ought to begin in "some state agency." But, as the recruiters were preparing to deliver that message on a Saturday morning, fate intervened in the person of Al Marshall, Rockefeller's chief of staff and a "notorious late-night person." When the bleary-eyed Marshall asked what was occurring, he was reminded Quern had been recommended by Hurd. "And he says, 'Welcome aboard.' He didn't know any of the background, and these two guys just melted because I had just been hired," laughs the beneficiary of the bungle.

Initially, Quern assisted the aide in charge of human services. "I was like one millimeter above office boy. I sat with the secretaries. But it was just a matter of doing the research and getting to know something and proving you were intelligent, could think a little bit, learn quickly."

He adds, "Rockefeller's staff was great because you truly got a chance — no matter what level or spot you were at — to get into things. He was into every issue there was. If you kind of impressed him with your knowledge and your ability to look at a problem and figure it out, come up with some interesting ideas, you could move quickly. And so it didn't matter that you were experienced."

What did matter was how an aide met tough demands, Quern says. "And, if you didn't produce, you might as well go into retirement. Sometimes, people would stay in a position or get promoted, but he'd quickly categorize you 'good' or 'bad,' and you were stuck with that unless you really worked at it. Rockefeller never said anything negative. If you were in trouble, you'd only get 'Great' written on memos. If you were doing pretty well, you would get 'Fantastic, I love it.' Or, if you were really doing well, there were just all sorts of things written on the memo that were really praiseworthy. But you knew. You could sense that you had turned him off. And if you didn't answer a question as adequately as he thought you should, you could see it in his face." Despite the pressure, it was exciting. "You always had the sense of enormous power and influence and connections. You never knew whether he was going to be talking to the shah of Iran or the president of Bolivia or the five major corporate heads in Europe. He had all these other connections outside
'Rockefeller never said
anything negative. If you
were in trouble, you'd only
get "Great" written on
memos. If you were doing
pretty well, you would get
"Fantastic, I love it" '
of government. And then there was the problem-solving thing. It was fun because you had the sense of solving problems."

When New York opened its Washington office, Rockefeller dispatched Quern, and he asked him to remain there after he resigned and left the governorship to Malcolm Wilson. But when his former mentor was designated by Ford to become vice president, Quern worked hard to help him survive the microscope of congressional confirmation scrutiny. After Rockefeller survived it, Quern was back in the fold and soon to become, at the vice president's behest, a key Ford adviser on Social Security, welfare and healthcare matters.

"We didn't realize," Quern says, "how much fear there was, but there was enormous fear on the part of all the Ford people that this Rockefeller juggernaut was going to come in and take over the Ford presidency. Ford had been a congressman and, of course, the House Republican leader, but Rockefeller had this national standing and tremendous resources, and I understand how this fear existed.

Yet, that was not Rockefeller's approach at all. His approach to Ford, from the beginning right to the end, was total loyalty. He and Ford were extremely close, in my judgment. There were some guys on the Ford staff he used to call the 'munchkins,' and he thought they were a bunch of little kids. However, he put up with them. He never said anything publicly."

That loyalty lead was not difficult for Quern to track. "Jerry Ford was about the most thoughtful person I've ever known," he says. Moreover, Quern gained a special appreciation for the awesome burdens on the presidency and how Ford shouldered them, "I don't think it's very easy to understand what a taxing job that is unless you've worked in the White House and watched the 36 meaningless occasions each week that the president has to go to while dealing with the pressures of the budget and all the domestic issues and the exigencies of foreign affairs where everything is constantly changing. The amount of information you have to absorb and deal with is staggering. You're in these three-minute, 10-minute things. One guy is in there talking to you about nuclear disarmament policy and the next guy is in there talking to you about whether or not the Congress will vote for some bill that's going to provide the dam in Utah that makes it possible to get the budget through the Congress. Ford stood up very well. He was not interested in solving all of mankind's problems, but he was into the basic issue of that time, which was restoring confidence in government."

After Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976, Quern considered leaving the public sector. But, when Illinois Gov.-elect Thompson met with Ford and Rockefeller on the same day, he heard Quern's name from each, and it was not long before he was luring the aide to Springfield to become Department of Public Aid director.

"I decided that the chance run that agency, to come out here and deal with problems directly, was really too much to pass by," says Quern. Accordingly, he opted for Illinois and did so without suffering the letdown that might be expected after leaving the nation's capital for less monumental surroundings. "Interestingly," he says, "I've had some friends who stayed in Washington in various jobs after we

20/April 1984/Illinois Issues


lost. They had a terrible time with it, a terrible time. One of my closest friends, who is about as easygoing a person, as nice a person as you will ever meet, has never been able to get over this personal hatred for Jimmy Carter, and that's because he was there in Washington and had to live there day to day looking at the Washington Post and reading about President Carter. Coming to Springfield really wasn't hard at all. I got right into it. There were big problems. And right away, I could kind of jump in. I liked the people right off the bat. And I was given tremendous leeway."

The governor, Quern says, made clear what he wanted from the welfare agency. It was the quarterback for distribution of millions of dollars in federal funds for social service purposes and yet seemed unable to leave the huddle. Welfare fraud, especially in the medical area, was a major concern. And state government — unless it could negotiate a reasonable settlement - was destined to lose litigation with hospitals over a freeze in rates it was paying under the Medicaid program. Thus, Quern had his assignments and was delegated considerable authority in
'I didn't have much time
to sit around and compare,
and I had a nice feeling
that I was in charge and
had a bigger challenge
than I personally had
before'
dealing with them. "I didn't have much time to sit around and compare, and I had a nice feeling that I was in charge and had a bigger challenge than I personally had before." There were moments when he was far from impressed. "You get into some rooms with legislators whom you think care about how much of an increase welfare recipients get and you find out they really care about some doctor who was a brother-in-law and how much he was being paid or whether an investigation was causing him trouble. Although there was certainly some of that in Washington, there were a little bigger stakes on both sides of the table," Quern says.


Art Quern, new chief of staff to Gov. James
R. Thompson, September 1979

But his days at Public Aid were generally satisfying. He got the Title XX program out of the huddle and moved it substantially down the field. He beefed up the agency's fraud fight. He negotiated a settlement with the hospitals. And, though he was seriously considering returning to the banks of the Potomac to join Sen. Howard Baker's presidential bid, he accepted Thompson's offer to become chief of staff in the fall of 1979.

It was tough duty. During his four years at Thompson's right hand, recession sapped state resources, dictated budget cuts and ultimately triggered a tax-increase campaign. But it was, Quern says, rewarding duty — just as stimulative as his baptismal stint with a Rockefeller administration that produced rather than pared programs. "I don't think," Quern says, "that government activism necessarily means spending more money. I think what happened was that we took some very active steps to reduce government without trying to hurt."

The cutbacks in Illinois, he argues, were sensitively handled. "I feel good about those years. I've come away feeling good in the sense that, if the cuts had to be made, I would rather have them made by us in the way that we did than in some of the other ways that could have happened," he says.

"The weathering of this recession and the way it was done were about as good as could be handled in any industrial state, and I truly believe we're in a position where we can move forward and differentiate ourselves from the rest of the Midwest. I think there are a lot of reasons for that. We held on to a basic level of support for higher education, made some cuts in government and did some changes in mental health that were the right things to do. I think that the mass transit programs and the highway programs were important for the future."

Moreover, he says, Thompson greatly smoothed relations between the legislative and executive branches. "And that's no mean thing. I think that's the kind of trend and attitude thing that lasts for generations. If you set a tone like that, it changes the way people think about the legislature and the governor and, therefore, it affects the way creatures behave when they get into those offices."

Quern also asserts the administration deserves credit for beginning to stress prevention programs, such as reaching out with help and advice to teenage parents before they become child abusers and permanent welfare dependents. "As small as those steps may appear in the overall scheme of things," he says, "they're really important and send messages to the bureaucracy and to the interest groups. They say, 'Hey, there's a chance to think a little bit about prevention and protection.' "

In addition, Quern says, "Thompson's basic integrity and basic acceptance in this administration has boded well for good people coming to government. It happens up and down the line. You find people going in at the entry levels, people to deal with mental health, policy analysts in the Bureau of the Budget, people who are worried about probation, people who get drawn in by this generally positive attitude about government work in this administration."

April 1984/Illinois Issues/21


There were, of course, disappointments. Despite efforts to plan for a bulging prison population, the administration found itself confronted with a crowding crunch. It also was made dramatically aware of state government's limitations in trying to abate relentless recession. It failed "to break through some way and make Illinois coal really marketable." And Thompson did not win the permanent tax increase he sought and which, Quern believes, is necessary to bolster a higher education system vital to the economic future of the state.

Yet, Quern's reflections on service in Springfield, Washington and Albany are pervaded by a fundamental confidence in government. Its performance, he says, nearly always seems to be described "in anecdotes of failure instead of in general pictures of success." But government, he adduces, manages on a continuing basis to confine criminals, to humanely house and treat those requiring institutional care, to help the poor survive. And state government, Quern says, is particularly "the place where things are going to happen. City governments are always pressured for basic services — police, fire, garbage, water. The federal government is too removed. State government is at the right level: It's got a little bit of distance. It's got the flexibility in raising resources and moving them around."

'City governments are
always pressured for basic
services .... The federal
government is too
removed. State government
is at the right level: It's got
a little bit of distance'

Quern's reflections also indicate admiration for the men he served and steadfast allegiance to them. Only under considerable prodding will he discuss shortcomings. Ford, he reluctantly concedes, occasionally may have been prone to respond to former legislative allies and dump a well-reasoned, executive-branch approach to a problem in favor of vote-swapping expediency. There was frustration when Rockefeller's thoughtful, exhaustive efforts on drug problems in the '60s were converted to an "extremely harsh" attack because success had proven elusive. Thompson may have been too slow at times to move on an issue and too quick at other times to accept gifts or favors that proved embarrassing to him.

But, even as Quern touches on these failings, he does so by emphasizing strengths, and that is particularly true in respect to his last boss. "Thompson's approach is one that has been driven by the times in part, but he also by his own inclinations has not charged at all the issues he could have charged at and really stuck through the long haul with every one of them. But I think that's part of his problem with being so smart because there's always a feeling that at the last minute you can salvage something out of a situation and put it together. Frequently, he does just that; yet, that's not the best discipline. You've got to sometimes go the long haul for things and be there for every step of the way, and he's so smart that sometimes he'll wait too late in the process or he'll wait to make a decision and some of his options get denied to him."

And the Thompson "slips" — a trip to the Rose Bowl on a Xerox plane after signing legislation related to the company, acceptance of cash as a Christmas gift from a union leader? "All of those, in my judgment, have been in the area of perceptions rather than realities. Jim Thompson will never be dishonest, and he knows that, It's the nature of the person; he will never be dishonest. So, sometimes, I think, he thinks everybody knows that and he doesn't have to worry about this possible appearance of a problem. There's been a kind of casualness to what otherwise would be a more rigid review of how will all this be perceived."

Obviously, Quern did not depart in disgust. In fact, he says he may return after a sampling of the private sector, where he went for more managerial experience and more income for his young family. And if he does return, you can bet he will not be hired by happenstance.

Mike Lawrence is Springfield bureau chief of Lee Enterprises.

22/April 1984/Illinois Issues



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