The White House Office is an entity within the Executive Office of the President of the United States. The White House Office is headed by the White House Chief of Staff, who is also the head of the Executive Office. The staff of the various offices are based in the West Wing and East Wing of the White House, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and the New Executive Office Building.

Established in the Executive Office of the President by Reorganization Plan 1 of 1939 and Executive Order 8248 to provide assistance to the President in the performance of his many detailed activities incident to his immediate office. The White House Office is organized in accordance with the wishes of each incumbent President and is directed by staff chosen by the President. A staff authorization was initially established in 1978 (92 Stat. 2445). Some presidential boards, committees, and commissions function organizationally as subunits of the White House Office.

Although still a subunit of the EOP, the White House Office remains the centerpiece of the presidential staff system. In many ways it is closest to the President both in physical proximity, its top aides occupy most of the offices in the West Wing, and in its impact on the day-to-day operations, deliberations, policy agendas, and public communications of a presidency. During the transition to office and continuing throughout an administration, the President enjoys a great deal of discretion in terms of how the White House Office is organized.

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical style. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades that were meant to conceal stables and storage.

In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed house in October 1817. Construction continued with the addition of the South Portico in 1824 and the North in 1829. Because of crowding within the executive mansion itself, President Theodore Roosevelt had all work offices relocated to the newly constructed West Wing in 1901. Eight years later, President William Howard Taft expanded the West Wing and created the first Oval Office which was eventually moved as the section was expanded. The third-floor attic was converted to living quarters in 1927 by augmenting the existing hip roof with long shed dormers. A newly constructed East Wing was used as a reception area for social events; Jefferson's colonnades connected the new wings. East Wing alterations were completed in 1946, creating additional office space. By 1948, the house's load-bearing exterior walls and internal wood beams were found to be close to failure. Under Harry S. Truman, the interior rooms were completely dismantled and a new internal load-bearing steel frame constructed inside the walls. Once this work was completed, the interior rooms were rebuilt.

Richard Gil Kerlikowske (born November 23, 1949) is the current Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, a position generally referred to as the United States "Drug Czar". He assumed office on May 7, 2009.

Kerlikowske graduated from the University of South Florida in Tampa and the Executive Institute at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Academy. He has served as Chief of Police in four cities and worked in the United States Justice Department. His longest term as a Chief of Police was between July 2001 and March 2009 in Seattle, Washington.

Kerlikowske was raised in Florida by his mother and stepfather. He married Anna Laszlo in 1995. He has a son and daughter.

Kerlikowske graduated from Fort Myers High School in 1968.^{[dead link]} He holds a B.A. and M.A. in criminal justice from the University of South Florida in Tampa. The school also gave him an honorary doctorate. He is a graduate of the National Executive Institute at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation. Clinton has been described as a New Democrat. Many of his policies have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance.

Born and raised in Arkansas, Clinton became both a student leader and a skilled musician. He is an alumnus of Georgetown University where he was Phi Beta Kappa and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. He is married to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has served as the United States Secretary of State since 2009 and was a Senator from New York from 2001 to 2009. Both Clintons received law degrees from Yale Law School, where they met and began dating. As Governor of Arkansas, Clinton overhauled the state's education system, and served as Chair of the National Governors Association.

Ronald Wilson Reagan ( /ˈrɒnəld ˈwɪlsən ˈreɪɡən/; February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States, serving from 1981 to 1989. Prior to that, he was the 33rd Governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and a radio, film and television actor.

Born in Tampico, Illinois and raised in Dixon, Reagan was educated at Eureka College, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and sociology. After his graduation, Reagan moved first to Iowa to work as a radio broadcaster and then in to Los Angeles in 1937 where he began a career as an actor, first in films and later television. Some of his most notable films include Knute Rockne, All American, Kings Row, and Bedtime for Bonzo. Reagan served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and later as a spokesman for General Electric (GE); his start in politics occurred during his work for GE. Originally a member of the Democratic Party, his positions began shifting rightward in the late 1950s, and he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. After delivering a rousing speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970. He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 as well as 1976, but won both the nomination and general election in 1980, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter.