50 Fun Facts About The U.S. Cabinet

What is the Cabinet member kept at a secret location during the State of the Union address called?

The designated survivor practice began in the 1950s, when Cold War planners feared a nuclear strike could kill everyone in the line of succession at once.

Which first Secretary of the Treasury, under George Washington, appears on the ten-dollar bill?

Alexander Hamilton held the post from 1789 to 1795 and was killed in a pistol duel with Aaron Burr in 1804.

Which building in Arlington, Virginia, houses the office of the Cabinet secretary who oversees the armed forces?

The Pentagon was dedicated in January 1943 and has about 6.5 million square feet of floor space, making it one of the largest office buildings in the world.

Which agency, founded to fight counterfeit money, was part of the Treasury Department until 2003?

The Secret Service began in 1865 chasing forgers and was only asked to protect presidents after William McKinley was assassinated in 1901.

Which New Deal reformer became the first woman to serve in a U.S. Cabinet, joining in 1933?

Frances Perkins stayed in the Cabinet until 1945 and helped design the Social Security Act of 1935.

Which Cabinet department runs both the National Weather Service and the once-a-decade national census?

The Department of Commerce gained the Weather Bureau in 1940, and its early duties included running the nation's lighthouses.

Which Cabinet department, created in 1977, is responsible for the U.S. military's nuclear weapons program?

The Department of Energy traces that role to the Atomic Energy Commission, the civilian body set up in 1946 to take over the work of the Manhattan Project.

Which future president served as George Washington's first Secretary of State before resigning in 1793?

Thomas Jefferson came to the job in 1790 straight from Paris, where he had been America's minister to France.

Whose vote of approval does a president's nominee need before taking office as a Cabinet secretary?

The Senate confirms Cabinet nominees by a simple majority, yet a president can dismiss them afterwards at any time without asking its approval.

Which 1967 addition to the Constitution lets a majority of the Cabinet help declare a president unable to serve?

The Twenty-fifth Amendment also lets presidents hand over power for a few hours, as George W. Bush did twice before colonoscopies.

Which Cabinet-level body was created in response to the September 11 attacks, merging 22 federal agencies?

The Department of Homeland Security followed a White House office that George W. Bush announced right after the attacks, and it began operating in March 2003.

Which Prague-born diplomat became the first woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State, in 1997?

Madeleine Albright reached America as an eleven-year-old after the 1948 communist coup in Czechoslovakia and was UN ambassador before her promotion.

Which Attorney General was appointed at age 35 by his own brother, the president, in 1961?

Robert F. Kennedy made fighting organized crime and backing civil rights the marks of his tenure, and he was assassinated in 1968.

Which Cabinet department, nicknamed the Department of Everything Else, runs the National Park Service?

The Department of the Interior earned the nickname for its sprawl: it also manages most federal land, hundreds of dams and hundreds of wildlife refuges.

On the civics test taken by people applying for U.S. citizenship, what is the Cabinet's job?

The official answer is that the Cabinet advises the president, who is free to ignore it, since the body has no collective executive powers of its own.

Which president was impeached in 1868 after trying to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton?

Andrew Johnson survived his trial by a single vote, while Stanton barricaded himself inside his office rather than give it up.

Which former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff became the first Black U.S. Secretary of State, in 2001?

Colin Powell had been the youngest officer to chair the Joint Chiefs, at 52, and oversaw Operation Desert Storm in that role.

Which Cabinet department, created in 1870, is led by the Attorney General instead of a secretary?

The Department of Justice arrived 81 years after its boss: Congress created the office of Attorney General in 1789, long before there was a department to run.

Which office, first held by Benjamin Franklin in 1775, lost its seat in the Cabinet in 1971?

The Postmaster General sat in the Cabinet from 1829 until the Post Office Department was reorganised as the independent U.S. Postal Service.

Which German-born refugee served as both Secretary of State and national security advisor under Richard Nixon?

Henry Kissinger shared the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a Vietnam ceasefire, an award that sparked controversy.

Which Cabinet department manages America's national forests and also runs the food assistance program SNAP?

The Department of Agriculture counts the Forest Service as its largest agency, and the forests and grasslands in its care make up about a quarter of all federal land.

Which president's Cabinet, stocked with men who had run against him, is the subject of the book Team of Rivals?

Abraham Lincoln gave three top posts to men he had beaten in 1860, and the Doris Kearns Goodwin book about them became the basis of a Steven Spielberg film.

Which future president served in the Cabinet through the 1920s under both Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge?

Herbert Hoover was so active in the job that he was called the under-secretary of all other departments, and he led the response to the great Mississippi flood of 1927.

Which Secretary of State negotiated the 1867 treaty that bought Alaska from Russia?

William Seward had survived being stabbed in the face and neck in his own bed two years earlier, on the night the president was assassinated.

Which Cabinet department, upgraded from an independent agency in 1989, manages the benefits of the GI Bill?

The Department of Veterans Affairs also runs a nationwide network of medical centers and more than a hundred national cemeteries.

Which official stands third in the presidential line of succession, immediately ahead of the Secretary of State?

The president pro tempore was moved ahead of the Cabinet by a 1947 law; for six decades before that, department heads came straight after the vice president.

What decides the order in which Cabinet secretaries stand in the presidential line of succession?

The order follows when each department was created, which puts State first, and the same rule decides how close each member sits to the president at Cabinet meetings.

Which former Boston bookseller, the namesake of a famous Kentucky fort, was the first Secretary of War?

Henry Knox had been chief of artillery in all of George Washington's campaigns, and he held the Cabinet post from 1789 to 1794.

Which future president of the Confederacy served as Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce in the 1850s?

Jefferson Davis used the post to promote the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, partly because he wanted a southern route for the new railroad to the Pacific.

Which armed service sat in the Transportation Department from 1967 until it moved to a new department in 2003?

The Coast Guard traces its roots to 1790, when Congress created a fleet of revenue cutters for the Treasury, and it stayed in that department until 1967.

Which former Florida prosecutor became the first woman to serve as Attorney General, in 1993?

Janet Reno stayed until 2001, which made her the longest-serving holder of the office since William Wirt left it in 1829.

Which economist became the first African American Cabinet secretary when he took charge of HUD in 1966?

Robert C. Weaver had advised Franklin Roosevelt three decades earlier as part of an informal group of African American policy advisers nicknamed the Black Cabinet.

Which Secretary of War under Theodore Roosevelt later became both president and head of the Supreme Court?

William Howard Taft is the only person to have held both offices, and Roosevelt hand-picked him as his successor in the White House.

Which 1920s oil scandal sent Albert Fall to prison, the first Cabinet member jailed for crimes in office?

Teapot Dome was a naval oil reserve in Wyoming that Fall leased out without competitive bidding, and he was convicted of taking a bribe from an oil man who won a similar lease in California.

Which president's circle of unofficial advisers was mocked by his opponents as the Kitchen Cabinet?

Andrew Jackson turned to the group, which included two newspaper editors, after purging his official Cabinet at the end of the Eaton affair.

Which Cabinet department is the parent of both the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC?

The Department of Health and Human Services was called Health, Education, and Welfare until 1979, when its schools work moved to a department of its own.

Which Secretary of State won the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize for a plan to rebuild postwar Europe?

George Marshall had been the U.S. Army's chief of staff throughout World War II, and Winston Churchill credited him with organizing the Allied victory.

Which Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower gave his name to Washington's main international airport?

John Foster Dulles favored a Cold War strategy of massive retaliation, and his brother Allen ran the CIA for most of the same years.

Which Cabinet department, created in 1913, oversees workplace safety rules and unemployment benefits?

The Department of Labor was signed into being on the final day of a presidency, with the stated purpose of promoting the well-being of wage earners.

Where does the Constitution let a president require written opinions from executive department heads?

Article II is the article on the presidency, and the Cabinet's whole role is inferred from that single line, known as the Opinion Clause.

What must a sitting member of Congress do before taking office as a Cabinet secretary?

A lawmaker has to resign the seat first, because the Constitution bars anyone holding a federal office from sitting in either house at the same time.

Which president signed the 1979 law that created a separate Department of Education?

Jimmy Carter signed it in October 1979, and the new department began operating the following May with a budget of about $14 billion.

Which former Ford Motor Company president served as Secretary of Defense for most of the Vietnam War buildup?

Robert McNamara left the job in 1968 to become president of the World Bank, which he steered toward poverty reduction until 1981.

Which Virginian introduced the Virginia Plan in 1787 and later became the first U.S. Attorney General?

Edmund Randolph had been governor of Virginia, and he later moved up within the Cabinet to become the second Secretary of State.

Which Washington neighborhood is home to the State Department and doubles as a nickname for it?

Foggy Bottom also houses the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and the State Department has been based there since 1947.

Which three-time presidential nominee quit as Secretary of State in 1915 after the Lusitania sinking?

William Jennings Bryan thought Woodrow Wilson's protest note to Germany risked war, and a decade later he was a prosecutor at the Scopes trial.

Which Attorney General resigned in 1973 rather than carry out Richard Nixon's order to fire Archibald Cox?

Elliot Richardson is one of only two people to have held four different Cabinet-level posts; the other is George Shultz.

Congress created the State Department in July 1789 as the Department of what, before renaming it that September?

The Department of Foreign Affairs was renamed when Congress gave it domestic chores as well, including keeping the Great Seal and managing the Mint.

Which last Cabinet-level head of the Navy became the first Secretary of Defense in 1947?

James Forrestal had opposed unifying the military services, and the supercarrier USS Forrestal was named in his honor in 1954.

Which Secretary of War under Ulysses Grant became, in 1876, the first Cabinet secretary to be impeached?

William Belknap was impeached over his role in a scandal at frontier trading posts, but he was acquitted at the trial that followed.