Editing Sherman Adams (section)

==White House Chief of Staff==
Eisenhower adopted the military model, which emphasizes the importance of the Chief of Staff in handling all of the paperwork and preliminary decisions.  With rare exceptions, anyone who spoke with Eisenhower had to have Adams'  prior approval.  Adams took his role as Chief of Staff very seriously; with the exception of Cabinet members and certain NSC advisors, all requests for access to Eisenhower had to go through his office. This alienated traditional Republican Party leaders.

Adams was one of the most powerful men in Washington during the six years he served as chief of staff. Because of Eisenhower's highly formalized staff structure, it appeared to many that he had virtual control over White House staff operations and domestic policy (a 1956 article in ''Time'' entitled "OK, S.A." advanced this perception). The extent of internal strife between strong-willed personalities was chronicled in his 1961 memoir ''First Hand Report.'' Among the heated conflicts within the Eisenhower administration were the best method to handle flamboyant personalities such as U.S. Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]], whom Adams and Eisenhower decided to torpedo when McCarthy started attacking the U.S. Army. Adams was a frequent broker of such controversies. Adams was willing to make the partisan comments that Eisenhower stood aloof from, thus making Adams the main target of the Democrats. Adams generally stood with the liberal wing of the Republican Party, in opposition to the conservative wing of Taft and Barry Goldwater. Eisenhower often depended upon him for the evaluation of candidates for top-level appointments.  Adams handled much of the  patronage and appointments that Eisenhower found boring and also was in charge of firing people when he deemed it necessary.<ref>Schoenebaum, ed., ''Political Profiles: The Eisenhower Years'' (1977), pp. 5–6.</ref>

Movie critic [[Michael Medved]] wrote a book on Presidential aides called ''The Shadow Presidents,'' that stated Adams was probably the most powerful chief of staff in history. He told of a joke that circulated around Washington in the 1950s. Two Democrats were talking and one said "Wouldn't it be terrible if Eisenhower died and [[Richard Nixon|Nixon]] became President?" The other replied "Wouldn't it be terrible if Sherman Adams died and Eisenhower became President!"

He had a reputation for negativity, endorsing many submissions with a simple "No".  This caused him to become known as "The Abominable No Man."

===Scandal===
Adams was forced to resign in 1958, when a House subcommittee revealed Adams had accepted an expensive [[vicuña]] overcoat and [[oriental rug]]<ref name=autogenerated1>[http://www.nndb.com/people/357/000094075/ Sherman Adams<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> from Bernard Goldfine, a Boston textile manufacturer who was being investigated for [[Federal Trade Commission]] violations. Goldfine, who had business with the federal government, was cited for contempt of Congress when he refused to answer questions regarding his relationship with Adams.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.crisispapers.org/blogs-ep/409.htm|title=Ernest Partridge's Blogs Archive|date=September 30, 2004|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051201101912/http://www.crisispapers.org/blogs-ep/409.htm|archive-date=December 1, 2005|df=mdy-all}}<br/>{{cite web|url=http://www.historyforsale.com/html/prodetails.asp?documentid=26624&start=1&page=150|title=SHERMAN "THE ICEBERG" ADAMS – TYPED LETTER SIGNED 10/08/1956 – DOCUMENT 26624}}</ref> The story was first reported to the public by [[muckraking]] journalist [[Jack Anderson (columnist)|Jack Anderson]].

Vice President Richard Nixon stated that he was assigned the onerous responsibility of telling Adams that he had to resign.  He regretted the necessity, as Adams' career in politics ended and he went off "to operate a ski lodge" without any judicial findings.  In [[the Nixon interviews]], Nixon argued that he was unable to fire the White House staffers involved in the Watergate scandal, much as President Eisenhower was unable to directly fire Adams.<ref>Interview with David Frost included with the 2008 DVD re-release of the original 1977 Nixon interviews.</ref> However, according to ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'''s September 29, 1958, article on Adams, the job of firing Adams actually fell to [[Meade Alcorn]], not Nixon.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,821155,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110131145406/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,821155,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 31, 2011 |title=THE ADMINISTRATION: Exit Adams|publisher=Time Magazine|date=September 29, 1958|access-date=September 11, 2012}}</ref>