Initial chapters examine why presidents so willingly embrace reorganization as a panacea for a variety of organizational and political ills and why Congress, interest groups, and Federal agencies do not view reorganization with the same enthusiasm. Subsequent chapters offer an in-depth empirical analysis of the Nixon administration's 1973 attempt to reorganize Federal narcotics law enforcement activities (Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1973). This detailed case study into how and why the reorganization was proposed and an examination of its consequences is included to begin to fill the void in the empirical literature on Federal reorganization and to provide an empirical basis on which to build more theoretical explanations for the frequent failure of reorganizations to have a significant impact on the activities of Federal agencies. The analysis demonstrates the effects of two major influences on the plan: organizational needs (revising what were generally agreed to be overlapping and inefficient drug enforcement operations) and political pressures (the need to produce visible action in drug enforcement and on law-and-order issues in general). It is also argued that the administration's failure to review the agencies' methods and strategies at the operating level made the reorganization more of a bureaucratic reshuffling than a fundamental change. Chapter notes and a subject index are provided.