The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity
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“President assumes full responsibility”: Harry S. Truman, Mr. Citizen, 16.
He thanked Truman: Dwight D. Eisenhower to Harry S. Truman, January 23, 1953, Presidential Papers: Box 33, “Ann Whitman File: Truman, Harry S.,” Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library.
“I would never have mentioned”: Harry S. Truman to Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 28, 1953, Presidential Papers: Box 33, “Ann Whitman File: Truman, Harry S.,” Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library.
“One trying to be nice”: Robert Nixon Oral History, October 16, 1970, Harry S. Truman Library.
“I’ll never forget it”: “Plain Mr. Truman,” Democrats, Time, February 2, 1953.
“Hoover has handled himself perfectly”: Ibid.
“Harry that comes to town”: “The Missouri Traveler,” Political Notes, Time, June 29, 1953.
“If we point out the Republicans’ errors”: “Now Is the Time,” National Affairs, Time, September 14, 1953.
Truman’s portrait was removed: Neal, Harry and Ike, 289; and Knebel, “The Inside Story of the Ike-Truman Feud.”
“I’m Julius Caesar”: Neal, Harry and Ike, 291.
“Oh, that was wrong”: Edward T. Folliard Oral History, August 20, 1970, Harry S. Truman Library.
“The man is a congenital liar”: Ewald, Eisenhower the President, 32.
“The effort of Herbert Brownell”: Clayton Fritchey, interview by Jerry N. Hess, July 1, 1969, transcript, Oral History Interviews, Harry S. Truman Library.
“cheap political trickery”: “I Have Been Accused” National Affairs, Time, November 23, 1953.
He never appeared: James Giglio, “Harry S. Truman and the Multifarious Ex-Presidency,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 12, no. 2 (1982).
“Best of luck”: Harry S. Truman, Off the Record, 341.
“I can’t tell you why”: Harry S. Truman, Where the Buck Stops, 54.
“But the really terrible thing”: Ibid., 108.
“you could almost see the icicles”: J. Leonard Reinsch Oral History, March 13, 1967, Harry S. Truman Library.
“Only if he had sent the GSA employee”: Neal, Harry and Ike, 301.
“I don’t believe in attacking”: “Truman Defends Eisenhower’s Trip,” New York Times, February 26, 1958.
On another occasion Acheson questioned: Giglio, “Harry S. Truman and the Multifarious Ex-Presidency.”
“How are you”: Alvin Shuster, “President Meets Truman at Rites,” New York Times, October 21, 1959.
When the service was over: Neal, Harry and Ike, 308.
how to place a phone call: Ambrose, Eisenhower the President, vol. II, 617.
“The other fellow”: “Eisenhower Policy Scored by Truman,” New York Times, November 3, 1961.
“Ike applied for membership”: Neal, Harry and Ike, 317.
“I want to have some time”: Rufus B. Burrus, interview by Niel M. Johnson, November 8, 1985, transcript, Oral History Interviews, Harry S. Truman Library.
“Then if anything is missing”: Donald Janson, “Eisenhower Visits with Truman,” New York Times, November 11, 1961.
Truman also pointed out: Burrus, interview.
“‘Former Presidents’ Club’”: Janson, “Eisenhower Visits with Truman.”
“I’m glad we had the chance”: Burrus, interview.
Kennedy and His Club: The Hazing
“And so . . . he always went out of his way”: Robert F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy In His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years, eds. Edwin O. Guthman and Jeffrey Shulman (New York: Bantam, 1988), 55.
Chapter 5: “He Had No Idea of the Complexity of the Job”
“the pay is pretty good”: “A Way with the People,” Time, January 5, 1962.
“So Jack met Ike”: Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2003), 116–17.
“American way of life”: Arthur M. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (New York: Fawcett Premier, 1971), 726.
“It’s the way”: Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 65.
Finally, there was something: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 302.
“All his golfing pals”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 18.
Kennedy was the golden boy: Christopher Matthews, Kennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry that Shaped Postwar America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 24.
They even shared: Ibid., 52.
He told Jackie: Ibid., 18.
“From that time on”: Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (New York: Scribner, 2008), 25.
press conference early in 1960: Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier and President, 503.
“I’ve spent my life in this”: Ibid., 500.
“failure of nerve”: Herbert S. Parmet, JFK: The Presidency of John F. Kennedy (New York: Dial Press, 1983), 9.
“I am not dissatisfied”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, “The President’s News Conference, February 3, 1960,” The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=11884
He managed to deliver: Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Address at the Republican National Convention” (speech, Chicago, July 26, 1960), transcript, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=11890&st=1960&st1=#axzz1eME0rmh8.
He demolished the experience argument: Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 152.
“Now, he might get the nomination”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 261.
As he told interviewer: Ibid., 274.
“I’ll do anything to beat him”: Ibid., 278.
“Listen, dammit”: “Biggest Gun,” The Campaign, Time, October 10, 1960.
“Little Boy Blue”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 302.
“U.S. moving forward again”: “Candidate in Orbit,” Democrats, Time, November 7, 1960.
But he charged in: “On the Firing Line,” The Presidency, Time, November 7, 1960.
“Where did this young genius”: Felix Belair Jr., “Eisenhower Gibes at ‘Young Genius’ in Campaign Tour,” New York Times, November 5, 1960.
“If the election were held tomorrow”: Matthews, Kennedy & Nixon, 175.
“We Back Jack”: Peter Kihss, “Crowds Are Huge,” New York Times, November 3, 1960.
Ike’s popularity averaged: “They Still Like Ike,” The Presidency, Time, November 28, 1960.
“I wouldn’t criticize anything”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 114.
Never mind that the first: John W. Finney, “A G.O.P. Peace Bid,” New York Times, November 7, 1960.
He was so angry: William Bragg Ewald, Eisenhower the President: Crucial Days, 1951–1960 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981), 312–13.
“Nixon’s late surge”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 295.
“Dick Nixon in 1960”: “Ike on the Frontier,” Nation, Time, October 19, 1962.
“My father had said to Ike”: William Safire, Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), 623.
The votes had barely been counted: Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 224.
The initial overture: Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), 271.
“He was completely depressed”: Matthews, Kennedy & Nixon, 183.
“I knew he would not be calling”: Richard M. Nixon, Six Crises (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962), 404.
“This is a generous gesture”: Smith, An Uncommon Man, 424.
Back at the table: Matthews, Kennedy & Nixon, 184.
“As I hung up and walked slowly”: Nixon, Six Crises, 405.
“Republicans don’t have to do”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 125.
“Maybe I’ll ask him”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 201.
Kennedy sat in the backseat: Matthews, Kennedy & Nixon, 185.
Pat and the girls: W.H. Lawrence, “Talk Is ‘Cordial,’” New York Times, November 15, 1960.
the purpose of the meeting: W.H. Lawrence, “Kennedy to Meet with Nixon Today in Move for Unity,” New York Times, November 14, 1960.
“I shall never join in any criticism of you”: Nixon, Six Crises, 410.
He got a standing ovation: Matthews, Kennedy & Nixon, 188–89.
“put an end to the bitter charges”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 232.
“It was political”: “Reunion at Key Biscayne,” New York Times, November 15, 1960.
“‘What in the world do I do now’”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 121.
The Constitution provides no machinery: “The Morning After,” The Presidency, Time, November 14, 1960.
“Governing has got to be a pleasure”: Richard E. Neustadt, Preparing to Be President: The Memos of Richard E. Neustadt, ed. Charles O. Jones (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2000), 3.
“I regarded this”: Clark Clifford, Counsel to the President: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1991), 334.
“I never heard him talk”: McGeorge Bundy, interview by Richard E. Neustadt, March 1964, transcript, Oral History Program, John F. Kennedy Library.
“In the Kennedy Administration”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 282.
“He paid little attention”: Ibid., 281.
The new president: Stephen Hess, Organizing the Presidency (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1976), 78.
“Kennedy would never have”: Frederick G. Dutton, interview by Charles T. Morrissey, May 3, 1965, transcript, Oral History Program, John F. Kennedy Library.
In its place: Sorensen, Kennedy, 262.
There would be no such figure: “The Nation,” New York Times, November 27, 1960.
“In the first months”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 281.
“I’m just telling you”: Bryce Harlow, interview by Michael L. Gillette, May 6, 1979, transcript, Oral History Collection, LBJ Library.
For all the formal machinery: Ernest R. May, “The Replacements,” National Interest, January–February, 2009, http://nationalinterest.org/bookreview/the-replacements-2955.
“Did you want me”: Bob Schieffer, “Advice and Dissent: What LBJ Could Have Learned from Ike,” Washington Monthly, July–August 1990, 50.
“His thoughts far outraced his speech”: Nixon, Six Crises, 161.
Thanking Eisenhower for his invitation: “Answers & Questions,” The President-Elect, Time, November 21, 1960.
Then with a bow: Reeves, President Kennedy, 21.
“I feel,” he told friends: Felix Belair Jr., “Kennedy to Visit President Today,” New York Times, December 6, 1960.
But on that Monday: Felix Belair Jr., “Meeting Cordial,” New York Times, December 7, 1960.
And Ike ushered him: “Changing of the Guard,” The President-Elect, Time, December 19, 1960.
They seemed, the New York Times suggested: Belair Jr., “Meeting Cordial.”
Ike stressed that the NSC: Michael Gordon Jackson, “Beyond Brinkmanship: Eisenhower, Nuclear War Fighting, and Korea, 1953–1968,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 35, no. 1, (March 2005): 62.
It proposed drastically: James R. Locher, Victory on the Potomac: The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies the Pentagon (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2002), 29.
Eisenhower knew something: Dwight D. Eisenhower, memo of December 6, 1960, Presidential Papers: Ann Whitman File: Presidential Transition Series, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library.
“If they are easy”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 23.
“Certainly his attitude”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, memo of December 6, 1960.
“Of course,” Eisenhower replied: Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Eisenhower Diaries, ed. Robert H. Ferrell (New York: Norton, 1981), 382.
In case Kennedy wasn’t getting: memo by Wilton Persons, December 6, 1960, Presidential Papers: Ann Whitman File: Presidential Transition Series, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library.
“What impressed the President most”: Clifford, Counsel to the President, 342.
Ike called him: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 303.
“He had no idea”: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Post-Presidential Papers, 1961–69; Gettysburg, Palm Desert, Indio File Box 2 JFK 1960–61 (1)(2) JFK 1962–67 (1) (2) (1)-14 pp. Malcolm Moos interview, 1966
“Eisenhower was a ‘non-President’”: Clifford, Counsel to the President, 342.
“I can handle it”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 666.
“And if he is a five star general”: David Eisenhower, Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961–1969 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 16.
Kennedy wanted to get together: John F. Kennedy, memo, January 19, 1961, Eisenhower, Dwight D., 1961: January–December file, Special Correspondence, Papers of John F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Library.
He introduced the nondescript man: Michael Korda, Ike: An American Hero (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 720; Reeves, President Kennedy, 30.
“I’ve shown my friend here”: “The 35th: John Fitzgerald Kennedy,” The Presidency, Time, January 27, 1961.
Had he not been briefed: Paul P. Kennedy, “U.S. Helps Train an Anti-Castro Force at Secret Guatemalan Air-Ground Base,” New York Times, January 10, 1961.
“In the long run”: memo by Wilton Persons, January 19, 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower Post-Presidential Papers: Augusta–Walter Reed Series, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library; Reeves, President Kennedy, 31.
“In retrospect, I believe”: Clifford, Counsel to the President, 344.
Having himself resisted: Ewald, Eisenhower the President, 316.
When it was over: Dwight D. Eisenhower, memo to Wilton Persons, January 19, 1961.
“It is not a partisan question”: “The 35th: John Fitzgerald Kennedy,” Time.
“It is invulnerable”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 33.
“He was fascinated”: Kennedy, In His Own Words, 55.
“If that smoke indicates a bomb”: Richard J. Cardinal Cushing, interview by Edward M. Kennedy, 1966, transcript, Oral History Program, John F. Kennedy Library.
At that point: Parmet, JFK, 4.
“And there was the oldest of them all”: “Eisenhower: Soldier of Peace,” Nation, Time, April 4, 1969.
They realized, Ike wrote later: Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower the President, vol. II (Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1987), 616.
“I’m going to be heard from”: “Last Days,” National Affairs, Time, January 27, 1961.
When they arrived at the farm: David Eisenhower, Going Home to Glory, 3.
“I would be back here”: Nixon, RN, 227–28.
“I am sure that your generous assistance”: John F. Kennedy to Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 21, 1961, Eisenhower, Dwight D., 1961: January–December file, Special Correspondence, Papers of John F. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Library.
As the story goes: David Eisenhower, Going Home to Glory, 17.
Chapter 6: “The Worse I Do, the More Popular I Get”
“I believe the President did not realize”: Richard M. Bissell Jr., Jonathan E. Lewis, and Frances T. Pudlo, Reflections of a Cold Warrior: From Yalta to the Bay of Pigs (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 183.
Again the CIA went along: Lucien S. Vandenbroucke, “The ‘Confessions’ of Allen Dulles: New Evidence on the Bay of Pigs,” Diplomatic History 8, no. 4 (October 1984): 369.
“The Cuban armed forces are stronger”: McGeorge Bundy, “Memorandum from the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Kennedy,” April 18, 1961, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, vol. X, Cuba, 1961–1962, ed. Louis J. Smith, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/baypig8.htm.
“It was a marvelous demonstration”: Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober, The Kennedy Presidency: An Oral History of the Era (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2003), 349.
“He was very in awe of Eisenhower”: Ibid., 33
3.
“No man entering upon this office”: “Man Meets Presidency,” The Nation, Time, February 10, 1961.
“But he had discovered”: Ibid.
“I will reserve to myself”: Strober and Strober, The Kennedy Presidency, 324.
“Everyone must be prepared”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 70.
“‘That’s just the problem’”: Strober and Strober, The Kennedy Presidency, 323.
But they didn’t mention that: Jack B. Pfeiffer, Official History of the Bay of Pigs Operation, vol. III, Evolution of CIA’s Anti-Castro Policies, 1959–January 1961, Central Intelligence Agency, December 1979, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB355/bop-vol3.pdf.
George Ball recalled: Strober and Strober, The Kennedy Presidency, 333.
“The Joint Chiefs”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 250.
“He respected the Supreme Allied Commander”: Strober and Strober, The Kennedy Presidency, 333.
“He was really trapped”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 337.
“It was on their recommendations”: Kennedy, In His Own Words, 246.
Not to mention: Sorensen, Kennedy, 295.
“And I say to you now”: Dallek, An Unfinished Life, 362; and Reeves, President Kennedy, 73.
Bissell sensed that Kennedy: Bissell Jr., Lewis, and Pudlow, Reflections of a Cold Warrior, 335.
By this point: Reeves, President Kennedy, 72.
Something about large meetings: Dutton, interview.
“But you always assume”: Schlesinger, A Thousand Days, 258.
“There were twelve of us”: Strober and Strober, The Kennedy Presidency, 158.
“More than once”: Reeves, President Kennedy, 84.
“Hell, Mr. President”: Ibid., 93.
“He seemed to me”: Sorensen, Kennedy, 308.
“And he cared so much”: Rick Klein, “Jacqueline Kennedy’s Audio Tapes Describe ‘Our Happiest Years,’” September 12, 2011, ABCnews.com, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Jacqueline_Kennedy/jacqueline-kennedy-audio-tapes-describe-happiest-years-jfk/story?id=14478313.
“How can you people do this”: Jack Hawkins, “Classified Disaster,” National Review, December 31, 1996.
“Here for the first time”: Chester Bowles, Notes on Cabinet Meeting, April 20, 1961, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, vol. X, Cuba, 1961–1962, ed. Louis J. Smith, http://www.state.gov/www/aboutstate/history/frusX/index.html.