The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity
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In search of advice— and a reassuring picture—Kennedy invited Ike to Camp David after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in April of 1961. (Robert Knudsen/ White House, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)
Once Kennedy took office, Truman was once more a welcome visitor to the White House, pictured here in May of 1961. (Robert Knudsen/ White House, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Boston)
Johnson called Eisenhower the night Kennedy was shot in November of 1963; the general would become a regular advisor. “You’re the best chief of staff I’ve got,” Johnson said in 1965. (LBJ Library photo by Yoichi Okamoto)
Nixon and Reagan had a complex, forty-year history of cooperation and competition. At California’s Bohemian Grove enclave in 1967, Nixon asked Reagan if he was running for president in 1968. Reagan’s reply was noncommittal. (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
By the end of the 1968 campaign, Johnson would privately accuse Nixon of committing treason; but once Nixon won, Johnson welcomed him to the White House and worked to ensure a smooth transition. (LBJ Library photo by Frank Wolfe)
Nixon and Ford met, socialized, and even carpooled together as young congressmen in 1949 and 1950. Against his instinct, Nixon tapped Ford as his vice president in 1973; Ford pardoned Nixon in 1974. (Courtesy Gerald R. Ford Library)
Reagan and Nixon, pictured here with HEW Secretary Elliot Richardson in 1971, were rivals for the 1968 GOP nomination. As president, Reagan welcomed Nixon’s help and advice—until Nixon found his arms-control policies naïve. (Associated Press)
Ford and Carter were bitter foes from the end of their race in 1976 until their flight home from Cairo in 1981. They would team up two dozen times on joint projects at home and abroad. Carter delivered Ford’s eulogy in 2007. (Associated Press)
Reagan gave Ford serious consideration before picking George Bush as his vice president in 1980. Reagan turned to Nixon for advice about how to help Bush win the presidency in 1988. (Courtesy Ronald Reagan Library)
Bush was a loyal Nixon protégé during the 1960s and 1970s, breaking with him only in the final days of Watergate. Once Bush became president in 1989, Nixon often seemed determined to undermine him. (George Bush Presidential Library and Museum)
Clinton received foreign policy advice from Nixon, usually in late-night telephone calls, that he described as hardheaded and matchless. Nixon told an aide that no other president had ever confided in him so completely. (Courtesy William J. Clinton Library)
Clinton hosted three of the five living former presidents for a sleepover at the White House in October of 1993. Bush went to bed early and Ford preferred a hotel; Carter and Clinton stayed up late talking and mending fences. (Courtesy William J. Clinton Library)
During his visit to the White House residence in 1993, Nixon discussed with the Clintons both the challenges of raising daughters in the White House and passing health care reform. (Courtesy William J. Clinton Library)
Clinton hosted three living former presidents for a sleepover at the White house in October of 1993. Bush went to bed early and ford preferred a hotel; Carter and Clinton stayed up late talking and mending fences. (Courtesy William J. Clinton Library)
Ford (and to a lesser degree, Carter) secretly tried to help Clinton avoid impeachment and a trial in the Senate in 1997 and 1998. In 1999, Clinton awarded Ford the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (Reuters/Win McNamee)
George Herbert Walker Bush, pictured at Yale in 1947, with his son George W. Bush, age nine months. The father was sworn in at age sixty-four; the son, having closely followed in many of his father’s footsteps, was sworn in at age fifty-four. (George Bush Presidential Library and Museum)
The younger Bush did not often talk about his father when he ran for president in 2000; when they met in the Oval Office on Inauguration Day in 2001, neither man could speak. (Eric Draper, Courtesy of the George W. Bush Presidential Library)
Four presidents gathered to celebrate the opening of the Clinton Library in November of 2004. Clinton and the elder Bush fell behind the main party during the tour; it was the beginning of a real friendship. (Eric Draper, Courtesy of the George W. Bush Presidential Library)
Bush and Clinton teamed up to help coordinate U.S. aid to Asian countries ravaged by the December 2005 tsunami, and later to assist Gulf coast states hit hard by hurricanes Katrina and Ike. (© Gerald Herbert/Pool/Reuters/Corbis)
The friendship between Bush and Clinton, shown here in 2005, was a rare display of bipartisanship in an era when the United States was deeply divided about politics. Bush even said that he might have been the father Clinton never had. (Associated Press)
Born just forty-four days apart, Bush and Clinton struck up a friendship long before they joined forces on Haiti in 2010. Bush appreciated the way Clinton had treated his father; Clinton respected Bush’s skills as a politician. (Associated Press)
Bush invited Carter, Clinton, and his father to have lunch with incoming president Obama in January of 2009. The four men warned the Club newcomer that living in the White House was hard on parents and children. (Associated Press)
As a candidate, Obama criticized many of Bush’s national security policies; as president, he adopted a number of them. The two men reunited at the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in New York City. (Associated Press)
Obama welcomed Bush and Clinton back to the White House before the two men took charge of coordinating U.S. aid to Haiti. By the winter of 2012, they had raised more than $50 million for Haitian relief. (© Brooks Kraft/Corbis)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is not often, as E. B. White suggested, that someone comes along who is both a true friend and a good editor. Priscilla Painton was excited about The Presidents Club from the very first, when even we could barely glimpse its dimensions. She put up with our peculiar way of writing books without betraying any doubts about our speed or direction. She is precise, passionate, provocative, and loyal. Priscilla would be a once-in-a-lifetime editor for most writers, and yet we have been lucky enough to work with her, more or less on a daily basis, for more than twenty years. If this book bears any signs of success, they are as much hers as ours.
We were lucky to have in John Huey and Rick Stengel two bosses who know history is told best through big personalities and long narratives. Rick and John supported this project from its inception and never complained when we occasionally seemed more interested in 1968 than 2012.
At Time, we were assisted and encouraged by too many colleagues to name; but we would be remiss not to thank D.W. Pine and Lon Tweeten, for technical and artistic advice on the jacket; Paul Moakley, Kira Pollack, and Diana Walker for missions and matters photographic; and Angela Thornton and Susan Weill for research. We are grateful as well for the patience and insights of Melissa August, Massimo Calabresi, David von Drehle, Michael Grunwald, Radhika Jones, Ratu Kamlani, Kim Kelleher, Michael Scherer, Mark Thompson, and Ali Zelenko. And we were at all times aware of the legions of Time correspondents from years past whose private memos and detailed dispatches to a different generation of editors remind us that there is nothing better than great reporting and storytelling knit carefully together.
We are indebted to those who marched through this wilderness years before and left blazes for us to follow: Michael Beschloss, Douglas Brinkley, David Coleman, Robert Dallek, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Marvin Kalb, James Mann, Jon Meacham, Rick Perlstine, Richard Reeves, and Richard Norton Smith. Bob Woodward was generous with his time and his own archive of club materials. Mike Meece, Doug Band, and Jean Becker lent a hand when we needed it most.
At the presidential libraries and foundations, John Heubusch, Mark Updegrove, Roman Papadiuk, Skip Rutherford, and Tim Naftali were unstinting in their time and help. Maryrose Grossman at the Kennedy Library assisted us with pictures. Barbara Cline at the LBJ library helped excavate the Nixon-Johnson relationship. Mary Lukens dove into the stacks in Ann Arbor to help find answers. Martin and Annelise Anderson at the Hoover Institution provided help at all ho
urs and, at times, food and drink. Kristen Julian gave us a crash course in citation.
We were saved from many errors by research assistants Maya Curry, Bayly Buck, Rick Eberstadt, and Sophia Yan. Chief researcher Mavis Baah hunted down countless requests for information and then kept track of every article, book, picture, and footnote. Her unseen hand is somewhere on every page.
At Simon & Schuster, Michael Szczerban was our unflappable and wise handler. Senior production editor Jonathan Evans and two peerless copy editors, Fred Chase and Ben Holmes, scoured and polished the manuscript with great skill and care.
At every turn, we stepped firmly thanks to the sure and confident guidance of Bob Barnett at Williams & Connolly. We are lucky to have him as our agent, advisor, and friend.
For the four years we have lived with this book, our families endured and indulged our distractions and our disappearances. Janet Gibbs and Robert Duffy laid the foundations, modeled on curiosity and the pursuit of far-fetched aspirations. Through countless nights and weekends, the space and encouragement to press on came from those who know us best and inspire us most: Demetra and Waits, Niko, Charlotte, Luke, Galen, and Jake. With love and gratitude, we dedicate this book to them.
NOTES
Introduction
“There’s just a general sympathy”: Author interview with Bill Clinton, November 16, 2011.
“Educate president-elect Obama in a nice way”: Author interview with Jimmy Carter, December 2, 2011.
“And you respect that”: Author interview by email with George H. W. Bush, October 7, 2011.
“You are the only one”: Marie B. Hecht, Beyond the Presidency: The Residues of Power (New York: Macmillan, 1976), 51.
“I will be the Secretary”: Harry S. Truman, Mr. Citizen (New York: Geis Associates; distributed by Random House, 1960), 18.
“the presidential machinery should keep on running”: Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 150.
“I need you more than ever now”: Lyndon B. Johnson to Dwight D. Eisenhower, November 23, 1963, Presidential Papers: Special Files: White House Famous Names, Papers of Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ Library.
“And your bedroom is up there”: Lyndon B. Johnson, Harry S. Truman, Bess Truman, WH6411-04-6166 (phone call), November 1964, transcript and MP3 and FLAC audio, Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia, http://whitehousetapes.net/transcript/johnson/wh6411-04-6166.
A year later: Michael Beschloss, ed., Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes, 1964–1965 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 384.
He and his wife, Pat: Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 535.
“There is no experience”: Arthur M. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (New York: Fawcett Premier, 1971), 674.
“They behaved as though history had begun”: Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), 334.
“The nakedness of the battlefield”: “The Loneliness of Office,” Republicans, Time, November 14, 1960.
“They’ll come sliding in”: David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 440.
Poison of the Presidency: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 667.
“I am sure that the problems”: Steve Neal, Harry and Ike: The Partnership That Remade the Postwar World (New York: Scribner, 2001), 303.
“No one,” Kennedy told historian: Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 557–58.
“We surely do,” Eisenhower agreed: David Eisenhower, Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961–1969 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 122.
“‘I wish I could pick up the phone’”: Bowling Green Daily News, April 29, 1994.
“I’ve got a much better appreciation”: Time, Dec. 19, 2004; interview with George W. Bush.
“There is no conversation so sweet”: Margaret Truman, “After the Presidency,” Life, December 1, 1972.
White House officials: Douglas Brinkley, The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter’s Journey Beyond the White House (New York: Viking, 1998), 405.
“No one who has been in the Presidency”: Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 613.
“Some indications of national unity”: Richard M. Nixon, Six Crises (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962), 404.
When Kennedy and then Johnson: David S. Broder, “Eisenhower Backs Stand on Vietnam,” New York Times, August 20, 1965.
“‘That is the way our country ought to work’”: Michael Duffy, “Interview,” Time, December 19, 2005.
Truman and Hoover: The Return of the Exile
“I’m not big enough”: Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman 1945–1948 (New York: Norton, 1977), 15.
“We talked,” Truman said: Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman (New York: Berkley Publishing Corporation; distributed by Putnam, 1974), 221.
“Yours has been a friendship”: Herbert Hoover to Harry S. Truman, December 19, 1962; available in Timothy Walch and Dwight M. Miller, eds., Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman: A Documentary History (Worland, WY: High Plains Publishing Co., 1992), 237.
Chapter 1: “I’m Not Big Enough for This Job”
He’d been in office less than two months: Lansing Warren, “Europe in Dire Need of U.S. Food,” New York Times, May 13, 1945.
One in three Belgian children: Herbert Hoover, An American Epic, vol. IV, The Guns Cease Killing and the Saving of Life from Famine Begins 1939–1963 (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1964), 103.
one in four children in Belgrade: Ibid., 170.
“I knew just the man I wanted to help me”: Harry S. Truman, Mr. Citizen (New York: Geis Associates; distributed by Random House, 1960), 119.
And such a sentimental whitewash: Whether Truman or Merle Miller was doing the fabricating will never be known for sure. The quotes in the above paragraph are from Miller’s Plain Speaking, a problematic book; the tapes on which it was allegedly based do not include the Hoover story.
While pleased at being back inside: Edgar Rickard, diary entry of May 30, 1945; this and other diary citations are available in Walch and Miller, Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman.
“Nothing more would come of it”: Herbert Hoover, personal memo reflecting on his meeting with Truman and relating the issues they discussed, May 28, 1945; available in Walch and Miller, Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman.
When he ran for reelection: Miller, Plain Speaking, 153.
By 1945 as Truman moved into the White House: Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 292.
“His father was a blacksmith in West Branch”: Harry S. Truman, Where the Buck Stops: The Personal and Private Writings of Harry S. Truman, ed. Margaret Truman (New York: Warner Books, 1989), 87–88.
until that point, it was not uncommon: Harry S. Truman, Mr. Citizen, 117.
“There certainly couldn’t be a better one”: David Burner, Herbert Hoover: A Public Life (New York: Atheneum, 1984), 151.
A poll of the Harvard faculty: William E. Leuchtenburg, Herbert Hoover (New York: Times Books, 2009), 47.
“The poorhouse is vanishing from among us”: “Hoover’s Speech,” National Affairs, Time, August 20, 1928.
Four years later Franklin Roosevelt would carry: “President-Reject,” Election Results, Time, November 14, 1932.
the lame-duck Congress considered impeachment: “I Impeach. . . .,” National Affairs, Time, December 26, 1932.
“We’ll hang Herbert Hoover to a sour apple tree”: “72nd’s Last,” The Congress, Time, December 12, 1932.
“I think he and his administration were blamed”: Harry S. Truman, Where the Buck Stops, 87.
“I’ll not kiss any babies”: Leuchtenburg, Herbert Hoo
ver, 72.
“the needs of the American people”: Harry S. Truman, Where the Buck Stops, 88.
“But the bank closings were an absolute necessity”: Harry S. Truman, Where the Buck Stops, 363.
When stock markets rose: Smith, An Uncommon Man, 185.
His own party pretended he didn’t exist: Leuchtenburg, Herbert Hoover, 154.
“He deserved better treatment”: Harry S. Truman, Mr. Citizen, 118.
After Pearl Harbor: Herbert Hoover to Harry S. Truman, December 19, 1962; available in Walch and Miller, Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman.
“Roosevelt couldn’t stand him”: David E. Lilienthal, The Journals of David E. Lilienthal, vol. II, The Atomic Energy Years, 1945–1950 (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 564; cited in Walch and Miller, Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman.
“I’m not raising him from the dead”: Smith, An Uncommon Man, 309.
Newsweek cast doubt on the sincerity: Ibid., 279.
At the Democratic convention in 1944: “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” Democrats, Time, July 31, 1944.
“We ought to be eternally grateful”: Leuchtenburg, Herbert Hoover, 149.
At this point: Harry S. Truman, Mr. Citizen, 119.