Joe Hagin’s departure from the White House was announced on Thursday the same way one of the president’s closest aides has operated for the past eight years - very quietly.
White House press secretary Dana Perino made several announcements to start her morning briefing, and then began to take questions before catching herself.
“That’s all I have to start with - I’m sorry, I have one other thing. This morning, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Joe Hagin, who many of you know, announced that he will be leaving the White House on July 20th,” she said.
Mrs. Perino relayed a few brief words from President Bush, who she said called Mr. Hagin “a very loyal friend” and said he is “very excited” for his next career move.
And that was it. Quick, effective and low-profile. Just the way the unassuming Mr. Hagin wanted it.
“Stay in character to the end,” he said in an interview in his West Wing Office. “I don’t see any reason to change the way I operated on this date.”
Mr. Hagin’s departure, to a yet-to-be-announced corporate job in Chicago, further shrinks the already tiny circle of White House aides who have been with Mr. Bush for his entire presidency.
Only Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten, his deputy Joel D. Kaplin, adviser Barry Jackson, administrator Linda Gambatesa and regional press director Jeanie Mamo have been in or near Mr. Bush’s inner circle since he took office almost eight years ago.
Mr. Hagin will not be feted, criticized or widely discussed on his way out, as were former top Bush aides Karl Rove and Dan Bartlett.
But those inside the White House will feel the absence of a man who has worked on all but one U.S. presidential campaigns since 1976.
Mr. Hagin, 52, a tall and imposing physical figure, is a soft-spoken, behind-the-scenes operator who probably has become the first deputy chief of staff to focus on moving the president and upgrading the facilities of the presidency.
He had planned on serving only the first year of the Bush presidency, but has said that after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he decided to stay on.
Mr. Hagin is credited with upgrading the White House communication systems, overseeing the modernization of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the White House press briefing room, setting up the president’s operations at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and planning the president’s surprise visits to Iraq, in addition to handling day-to-day logistics and planning.
“He handled a lot of things that affect both the president’s psychology and how the public sees him,” Andrew H. Card Jr., Mr. Bush’s chief of staff during his first term, said in an interview.
Mr. Hagin talked often of handing off an efficient and well-oiled presidency to the next administration and said the Bush administration, under his watch, has “revolutionized the way the White House operates.”
“The president has to have systems and structures that work effectively,” said Mr. Hagin, who tackled the president’s secure communications network after Mr. Bush was frustrated by his limitations on Sept. 11, 2001.
“I’m proud of what we’ve done with the infrastructure and the stuff that nobody pays attention to.”
At the Crawford ranch, Mr. Hagin has been of the president’s most frequent partners in clearing brush and also has been responsible for making sure the president’s pickup is running OK.
“Hagin has chopped more cedar than any member of the White House staff,” Mr. Rove said in an interview.
Mr. Hagin also is the only person to attend about 90 percent of Mr. Bush’s meetings with almost 500 families of soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.
In an interview last week, Mr. Hagin described how accompanying the president to such meetings and on trips to natural disaster zones has changed him personally.
“When I started this job I was a relatively unemotional person. Not in a crazy way. But I’ve turned into a much more emotional person, between September 11 and the aftermath and this, and just the disasters that we go to see and the human suffering that’s out there,” he said.
“You can’t help but develop a real soft spot for people who have either sacrificed so much or who have lost so much.”
Mr. Rove said that on Sept. 14, 2001, when Mr. Bush met with families of those lost in the terror attacks in New York, he was emotionally overcome after about 20 minutes.
“And there was Joe, dealing with his emotions, and he sat there and made methodical notes about everything that needed to be done for everyone,” he said.
Fittingly, Mr. Hagin was with Mr. Bush Thursday when he visited with injured war veterans at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.
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