Kitchen Cabinet

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For cabinets used in kitchens, see kitchen cabinet.

The Kitchen Cabinet was an informal group of unofficial advisers that U.S. President Andrew Jackson consulted along with his official Cabinet. The primary members of this original Kitchen Cabinet were William B. Lewis, Amos Kendall, John Eaton and Duff Green, editors of the United States Telegraph. Also part of the group were Attorney General, Treasury Secretary, and future U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, Roger Taney and Secretary of State Martin Van Buren, the most influential. After most of Jackson's cabinet resigned in the wake of the Eaton Affair the role of the Kitchen Cabinet was much diminished.

The phrase is used informally in modern times in reference to a President's or presidential candidate's closest unofficial advisers. When they would meet it would often be a place where they would become drunk. Clark Clifford was considered a member of the kitchen cabinet for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, before he was appointed Secretary of Defense. Robert Kennedy was considered a kitchen cabinet member as well as a Cabinet member while he was his brother's Attorney General. Ronald Reagan had a kitchen cabinet of allies and friends from California who advised him during his terms.

The term has been adopted in recent years by those in British politics as a term of abuse for the way in which British Prime Ministers (especially Tony Blair) have sidelined the traditional democratic cabinet structures to rely far more on a close group of non-elected advisors and allies. Examples of this practice include Blair's reliance on advisor Andrew Adonis before his appointment to the cabinet. Traditionally, the role of creation of education policy would have rested on the Secretary of State for Education and Skills when formulating policy. However, the phrase was in popular usage to describe British Prime Minister Harold Wilson's inner circle during his earlier terms of office (1964-1970 and 1974-1976), who prior to Tony Blair was the longest ever serving Labour Party Prime Minister.