Harry C. McPherson Jr., an influential White House counsel and speechwriter for President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1965 to 1969 and the author of a classic insider's memoir on Washington-style politics, died on Thursday in Bethesda, Md .He was 82.
PAGE A18 Hints of White House Shift The new White House chief of staff has raised the possibility of moving Harriet E. Miers, below, from her job as President Bush's counsel, an influential Republican said.
In 1948 he signed the Brussels Treaty establishing a regional defense alliance among Britain, France, and the Benelux countries, and he helped align those nations with the United States the following year to form NATO. Spaak's counsel was influential in persuading King Leopold III to abdicate the Belgian throne in 1951.
"Eisner's loss is not necessarily Comcast's victory," Patrick McGurn, special counsel to the influential advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services, said yesterday.
In addition, the administration has not appointed a general counsel, who is especially influential in deciding which discrimination cases to bring and how the litigation should be handled.
But the separation "is not a silver bullet," said Patrick McGurn, special counsel for Institutional Shareholder Services, the influential proxy adviser that recommended that shareholders withhold votes from Mr. Eisner in the election and that the company split the posts.
He counseled caution when many influential players, including the Federal Reserve and Congress, resisted any suggestion that they slow the country's stampede to home ownership.
A similar dynamic took hold on one private e-mail list of about 1,200 influential progressives called "Game Changers," prompting some Democrats to counsel participants to slow down with the Warren-for-president talk.
And many influential Americans -- including even Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- now counsel countries against using the United States Constitution as a model.
"Biden seems committed to the notion of being less influential," said Shannen W. Coffin, who was the vice president's counsel until 2007.
