"Message of the Leaked Minutes" is an article published by The Nation on September 30, 1978. For over a decade, reporters from The Nation were denied access to the White House, the Secret Service declaring them a potential threat to the President. Despite hearing from other news agencies that such access is actually quite tedious, the staff was still surprised how true this was when they gained access to a year's worth of Cabinet meeting minutes from March 14, 1977 to March 13, 1978. Vonnegut was asked to contribute his thoughts on the leak, along with Robert Sherrill, Marcus Raskin, and Marcel Ophuls.[1] His response was reprinted in the collection Vonnegut By The Dozen.
Summary[]
Carter Cabinet meeting, 1978
Given the nature of American society and its system of government, Vonnegut finds it no surprise that Cabinet meetings are little more than an elaborate, adult version of grade school Show and Tell. People search their minds for something to talk about purely for the sake of talk, with no real business being done. Often there is nothing to report, only rarely are solutions to problems actually discussed, and occasional important issues are given as much time as minutiae. Rather than being dispirited by this, Vonnegut instead is "enchanted" that the executive branch recognizes that our leaders are essentially children—variously shy, boastful, clever, and boring. In Fascist Italy, Mussolini had members of his Cabinet engage in physical exertion to show their ability to lead, while the American system is "simultaneously more instructive and cruel."[2]