by Bill Fawcett
Lyndon Baines Johnson was one of the most determinedly energetic men to ever serve as president. When he was pursuing some legislation, the president could literally be tireless and seem—to those he wanted something from—sleepless. He would pursue his targets relentlessly and anywhere. LBJ was known to follow a man into the men’s room to harangue him for his vote. Multiple late-night calls were common and there seemed to be little regard for time. If there was a major vote near, it was no surprise to many legislators if their phone rang at 3 a.m. and the president was on the line. The whole process was called by Beltway insiders the “LBJ Treatment” and it worked.
THE RIGHT SPOT
Having been from the South, well, Texas, and very socially aware, Lyndon Johnson was very conscious of the historic importance of the Voting Rights Act. He chose to have the signing ceremony for this law in the President’s Room of the Capitol. In doing, so he was remembering another bill signed in that room on a similar subject more than a century earlier. Also signed in the exact same spot by Abraham Lincoln was the Emancipation Proclamation.
EGO
Perhaps nothing shows the massive egotism that eventually crippled the Nixon presidency more than two choices he made. One of these choices literally cost him the job. That was that, until subpoenaed, the White House tapes which eventually provided virtually all of the evidence that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation were his personal property. As such he could have tossed a match in the storage room and likely never have been personally linked to Watergate by proof. But Nixon felt that the taped records of his Oval Office meetings were too important historically to destroy. Ironically, he was right, but for the wrong reason.
While in office, President Nixon decided he wanted a uniform for the White House police force that reflected his position. He personally designed their new uniforms that were a gaudy combination of gold trim, high-brimmed hats, and embroidery. When the new look was previewed, just about everyone but Nixon immediately realized they were so ostentatious that a banana republic dictator would find them embarrassing. The uniforms, which were already finished, did not go to waste. Somewhere in Iowa is a very well-dressed high school band that benefited from that particular burst of egotism.
NOT ALONE
While Richard Nixon won the popular vote in a landslide victory over George McGovern, he was never actually popular. There was something, and we found out what in the Watergate hearings, that just didn’t let you trust the man. Even Eisenhower, who twice made him his vice president, had a negative opinion.
Truman: “Nixon is a tricky, goddamned liar and people know it.” So true.
Ike: “This man will never be president. The people don’t like him.” Ooops, wrong twice.
Kissinger: “The most dangerous of all the men running, to have as a president.” Good judge of character wasn’t he?
JFK: “If I have done nothing else for this country, I’ve saved them from Dick Nixon.” Well, delayed anyhow.
On one level, these quotes show just how unlikable and distrusted Tricky Dick was. On another, they show just how good a politician he was to overcome such antipathy and twice be elected president.
A TRUE MOVIE BUFF
Both Ronald Reagan and the First Lady, Nancy, were big movie fans. Sometimes the movies even affected his real world decisions. One of the Great Communicator’s boldest offers was to guarantee the balance of power (or terror) by allowing the Russians access to the technology of his Star Wars anti-missile program. General Colin Powell has said that Reagan got the idea of sharing the program from the Michael Rennie character in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
SEARCHING FOR ONE GOOD MAN
If you have tired at this point of hearing about promiscuous presidents, then skip to the next entry. It seems that George H. W. Bush may not have been above following in the shoes of FDR, Kennedy, and Johnson when it came to sex in the White House. Close associates have confirmed (off the record) that the first President Bush did indeed have a number of affairs, including one with his secretary Jennifer Fitzgerald. It was that rumored affair that was lampooned in the movie Dave. But it is important to add that there has never been any proof of these rumors and you have to suppose that a wise man would have thought carefully before crossing the both greatly loved and formidable Barbara Bush.
KENNEDY’S SUCCESSOR
Bill Clinton liked to think and act as the true successor to JFK. The problem was one thing the two men shared was a near-addictive need for sex. Most certainly, Monica Lewinsky was a passing relationship compared to Bill Clinton’s twenty-five-year arrangement with a lawyer named Dolly Kyle. Like Kennedy, the forty-second president seemed to have a need for constant intimacy with a wide range of women. And also like Kennedy and LBJ, he was willing to use his office, first as governor of Arkansas and later president, to seduce or aid others in procuring women to have sex with him. But there is one difference. The press consciously gave JFK, LBJ, and those who were president before a pass. This was not the case with Bill Clinton. One thing to also remember, a presidential affair is not illegal. What Clinton was lambasted and nearly impeached for was lying under oath about the affair, not the affair itself.
DRIVING DRUNK
Richard Nixon was known by his staff to occasionally get totally blitzed. The fact was that Dick Nixon was a cheap drunk and even a few wines could cause him to slur his words. Even if drunk, he would always exercise his presidential authority. There were several incidents where a sloshed Nixon would have caused worldwide destruction if his drunken commands had been actually obeyed. Once while drunk, when the North Koreans shot down one of our spy planes, he ordered preparations for a nuclear attack. Since just getting the missiles out would likely have started World War III, it is a good thing he staff recognized his condition and ignored the order.
DRIVING MISS
Driving a car in Kennebunkport, Maine, can be hazardous to your political career. Now, this is not referring to the infamous time that Ted Kennedy ran a car off a bridge and killed his companion. It seems that in 1976, future President George W. Bush was stopped there for driving while intoxicated, was fined, and lost his license over the incident. This was later brought up as part of the attacks on candidate George W. Bush’s character, but the attacks never got any traction. At the age of forty, the president had sworn off all alcohol and appears to have stuck with that promise.
WHO’S QUOTE?
This should sound familiar: “With riches have come inexcusable waste. We…have not stopped to conserve the exceeding bounty of nature…. We have been proud of our industrial achievements, but we have not hereto stopped thoughtfully enough to count the human cost.” This is not a quote from Al Gore’s latest ecological diatribe, but is taken from Woodrow Wilson’s inaugural address given in 1913, almost a century ago!
LATE NIGHTS
Woodrow Wilson was another of those workaholic presidents. He put in long hours and was at his desk late most nights. Wilson made less use of staff compared to a modern president in that he drafted most of own his speeches, press releases, and important letters. He did this first in shorthand and then transcribed his own notes using a typewriter.
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GRANT ME THIS
“My failures have been errors in judgment, not intent”
U. S. Grant
U. S. Grant’s first name was not Ulysses. He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant. He had always disliked his first name of Hiram so when he signed up at West Point he used his middle name, Ulysses, and his mother’s maiden name, Simpson. The ploy worked and he was always recognized and known by his chosen name after the change.
Ulysses Grant was by no definition one of the most important or effective presidents. He was in his way a colorful figure and in another way the embodiment of the American dream. He overcame failure in business, leaving the military under a cloud to return eventually as the commander of the Army of the Potomac, and then president of the United States. We have all heard of him, as Jim West’s boss on the TV show and movie Wi
ld Wild West if nothing else, but much of what you think you know about the man is likely wrong.
HE WHAT?
Okay let’s start with a bit of a shocker. At one time, Grant bought and owned a slave. The slave’s name was William Jones and he was thirty-five when purchased. Grant lived in Missouri, where slavery was legal. This happened only two years before the Civil War. There are some records that show the future president was not very comfortable with the arrangement. Even though he was hurting for money, rather than sell William Jones off, Grant chose to free him in less than a year.
This was not the only time U. S. Grant owned slaves. His wife, Julia Dent, was from a Southern, slave-holding family. Since slaves were legal in Missouri at that time, she brought three of the family slaves with her when she moved into Grant’s house. Again, he was not happy with the arrangement and eventually convinced her to return the three slaves to her family. Incidentally, most of her family was loyal to the Confederacy, causing Grant no end of trouble by giving ammunition to his political opponents and jealous generals.
WOOZY
There is good reason to believe that the general who ordered tens of thousands of men to their deaths could not personally deal with the sight of blood. The roots of this may lie in his childhood. Grant’s father was a tanner. This meant that in his youth the future general and president was constantly exposed to newly cut and bloody hides. While serving in Mexico, U. S. Grant attended a bullfight and was so sickened by the blood that he left early. It has always been traditional that the commanding general tour hospitals after a battle to thank the wounded for their sacrifice. The Civil War was a particularly nasty period for such visits and the amputation of limbs was perhaps the most common surgery performed. Grant often had trouble visiting the hospitals and rarely lingered, even though he always had great concern for his men. A final note on blood went to the president’s taste in meat: he insisted that his steaks be served only well done.
MISS JULIA
Julia Grant, often referred to as “Mrs. G” by her husband, was cross-eyed. She is the only First Lady to have been such. He was always most concerned with her well-being and how she suffered from his lack of financial acumen.
SKIN OF HIS TEETH
Grant was pushed into the spotlight because of his victory in capturing the well-defended city of Vicksburg. During that siege, he had more problems than just military ones. At one point, by mistake, a servant threw assorted garbage—and the future president’s false teeth—into the Mississippi.
A PRESIDENT BY ANY OTHER NAME…
When he, reluctantly, attended West Point and his middle name was recorded incorrectly, he never bothered to change it. After being given a newspaper with a headline calling him “U. S. Grant,” he saw the PR value and continued to use the incorrect “S.” He never formally changed his middle name, though he was such a popular war hero (in the North anyhow) that no one cared.
EVERYONE IS A CRITIC
Even as president, Grant was not much for music. He may well have had a “tin ear” and echoed Admiral Nelson when he commented, “I only know two tunes. One of them is ‘Yankee Doodle’ and the other isn’t.” (For Nelson it was “God Save the King” and not.)
TIPPLER
Everyone has heard that Grant was a heavy drinker. Actually, records and his associates’ memoirs show just the opposite. He was never a heavy drinker, though at one point early in his career he did have a problem with drinking. The root of that problem was not the quantity of alcohol that Ulysses Grant consumed. Basically it was because, as a young army officer, the future president was a cheap drunk. He could not hold his liquor and was affected by a surprisingly small number of drinks. The rumors all stem from a time when young Grant, while stationed at Fort Humboldt, allowed himself a drink or two at the wrong time. He was found to be inebriated while on duty as the paymaster. Since this job involved handling large sums of money in an army that was kept poor by Congress, it was a serious offense. Grant was forced to resign his commission. This is what later led to rumors about General Grant being drunk or drinking while in command. These rumors were mostly spread by his political enemies and had no basis in truth. In fact, there is good evidence he didn’t drink at all, or very rarely, during the war.
There is not a single record that Lincoln actually once said to find out what brand of whiskey Grant drank so he could send it to his other generals. There are records of similar sarcastic remarks dating back at least to the ancient Greeks.
BUT NOT THEM (OR THE IRISH)
As an officer Grant may well have been a bit anti-Semitic. While he had no trouble working with Jewish officers, he once issued an order regarding sutlers who sold goods to the troops that began, “The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of the trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.” The support of the Jewish community and the materials they provided to the army were considered vital and the order was blocked from Washington before it could be implemented. There are no records of his taking any anti-Semitic actions while he was U.S. president.
ANTI-WAR VOTE
What you might find to be another surprise is that Grant, in 1860, did not support nor did he vote for Abraham Lincoln. Grant had served in the Mexican-American War and knew firsthand the horrors of battle. Like many soldiers, Grant did not want to see his country torn apart by war. He voted for Stephen Douglas, a Democrat who ran on a platform of compromise between the free and slave states—and warned Lincoln that he had done so when offered the command of the Army of the Potomac.
COST OF LIVING…IN THE WHITE HOUSE
President Grant received one of the larger pay raises for the era while in office. In 1873, his official salary was raised from $25,000 to $50,000. For the day, this was a very substantial amount, but in those days the president was expected to entertain and pay many of the White House expenses out of his own pocket.
AND THE HORSE HE RODE IN ON
President Ulysses Grant has the distinction of being the last president to receive a speeding ticket in the federal District of Columbia. The president loved fast horses and always had several stabled at the White House. He also may have been an average cadet academically, but held the record for high jumps while at West Point. It seems that after the war a number of new police officers were trained, many of them black. The new recruits took the laws seriously, so when a man sped through the city in his open carriage, he was stopped for going at an excessive rate. The man was President Grant, who accepted the ticket and complimented the officer for his diligence. He put up a $20 deposit, but did not show up for court and no one said anything. Hey, he was the president, and therefore both the judge and the officer’s boss in the federal territory of Washington, D.C.
DEFICIT SPENDING
There are renaissance men who can be successful in business, as national leaders, soldiers, and even scientists. But these are rare and far between. President Grant was not one of these men. To give him credit, he was a great general and, despite the general impression, a competent president. What he never, ever was good at was finance or business. Before returning to the Army, U. S. Grant managed to fail miserably at several businesses. He left the army to become the eighteenth president and serve two terms. Once he retired from the presidency, old habits and problems returned. Among other things, Grant was roped into a fraud involving a New York City investment company. This was one of those pyramid schemes where the early investors, such as Grant, are paid dividends that are actually just some of the money gained from later investors. Many of those investors were wooed by the former president being one as well. Thinking all was well, Grant thought nothing when the head of the company appeared at his door in Spring of 1884 and asked the former president’s help in raising a large sum, about $150,000, quickly. Grant went to William H. Vanderbilt and signed a note for the whole amount. He never saw that man or a penny of his money again. The whole s
cam collapsed with the man running the company and all the money gone. Grant was now on the hook for the massive loan to pay off Vanderbilt and had a total of $80 in his personal accounts. He soon did not have enough money even to pay his bills. To pay off the loan, as he felt honor required, Grant gave Vanderbilt all his real estate and personal belongings, even including the ceremonial swords and other memorabilia given him by the grateful government and citizens. In a desperate effort to recover from his spiraling debt, the former general wrote his own memoirs of the Civil War and presidency. Published after his death, the book was a bestseller and allowed the Civil War hero’s widow to live her remaining years in cautious solvency.
FINAL BEQUEST
Ulysses Grant was one of the worst businessmen ever to occupy the White House. After resigning his commission, Grant failed as both a farmer and then as a dry goods merchant. This was long before the day of presidential pensions and office allowances. Grant died broke and in debt.
In many other ways, Ulysses Grant was a very classy man. His presidency, mostly due to his trusting some of the worst thieves in the government’s history (and that takes a lot!), is not remembered well by historians. But he was popular with the voters and the men who had served under him during the Civil War. When Grant was caught up in the bank scam described earlier, he knew many of the investors had been taken because they had trusted anything he was involved in. His efforts to even partially compensate those who had suffered left him insolvent. It was at about this time that Sam Clemens (who wrote as Mark Twain) approached Grant and offered him a very good royalty if he would write his autobiography. Now U. S. Grant was not a stylish writer, but his straightforward prose style and the numerous stories he could relate about not only the major political figures of his day but also about the men who fought the Civil War with and against him made the book fascinating and a good read even today.