AMERICAN Presidents are interesting people so it's only natural that much is written about them. This book gives an insight into the character of 10 presidents. To be the head honcho of any country is always a good read. This keeps some of your evenings occupied.
AS America rolls along like its mighty Mississippi River in its 220th year
of independence, its 42nd President (Bill Clinton) wrestles with the
endemic socio-economic and political issues which beset his predecessors.
In the preface of Character Above All, editor Robert Wilson remarks that
the "book was conceived as an act of defiance". It was deliberately
written "against the consultants and campaign managers who feel we'd
rather read a good bumper sticker than a good book".
Wilson feels that as American citizens, the people should shoulder the
responsibilities of citizenship. Being deeply informed about the character
of those Americans who ultimately claimed the biggest trophy in the arena
of political ambitions is a duty. Thus, this book.
Character Above All will probably find better favour with an American
readership than the English-speaking peoples in the other continents.
It covers 10 presidents, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933) and
ends 40 years later with George Bush. It is the work of 10 journalists,
historians and biographers who have studied the lives and character of
these men, and consequently are in a clear position to have something
definite to say about their subjects.
Although the book deals with historic figures, it does not read like a
treatise. It is insightful in parts, filled with memorable quotes in some,
and humorous in others.
A study of the contrasting styles of the various writers of distinction
draws one to conclude that each is almost equal in excellence to the
other.
The book is a rather refreshing read. One is seldom bored by its
passages. A paragraph on John F. Kennedy quotes the late President as
saying to the then British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan during one
encounter: "I don't know about you, Harold, but if I don't have a woman
every three days, I get these terrible headaches. How about you?"
Unfortunately for JFK, MacMillan noted that remarkable statement in his
diary. However, sadly for the rest of the world, history has no record of
the Englishman's reply.
In picking the best three essays among the 10, the chapters on
Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan are the most readable. My biased choices are
no reflection of their writers' skills; rather it is the manner in which
the Presidents' lives unravelled.
Roosevelt's life story is rendered with great pathos by Doris Kearns
Goodwin, a Pulitzer winner who has written several books on American
presidents.
The man who graduated from Harvard and Columbia Law rose to fame in one
of America's most tumultuous times. Roosevelt's feats of pulling the
people out of the pits of the Great Depression in 1933 and rousing the
nation to her feet from his wheelchair during the Second World War have
embedded him firmly in America's Hall of Fame.
It seems that the bout with polio which Roosevelt lost at the age of 39
only served to strengthen his character. His wife Eleanor commented on his
disability: "I think probably the thing that took most courage in his life
was his mastery and his meeting of polio. I never heard him complain."
When one has to peruse the professional writers' views on the lives of
State leaders, one unconsciously `feels' for the essence of the story and
searches for its heart.
In this respect, Peggy Noonan stands head and shoulders above her peers
as she waxes most eloquently about her former boss, Ronald Reagan. Noonan
was Reagan's special assistant and, later, George Bush's chief
speechwriter.
Close though she was to Reagan, Noonan is not blind to his faults. She
says: "So he was very kind, very brave, had many flaws, and stuck to his
guns. And his legacy is this: He unleashed the greatest peacetime economic
expansion in all of US history. And within a year of his leaving the White
House, the Berlin Wall fell ... and Soviet Communism collapsed.
"Not too bad for Jack Reagan's son, Pat Brown's hapless opponent, Jerry
Ford's losing adversary, and the intellectuals' affable dunce."
Obviously, one of Hollywood's most unforgettable actors possessed some
very endearing qualities to elicit such high praise from Noonan, a battle-
hardened political trooper who herself has clocked countless kilometres
along the corridors that border the Oval Office.
Three Presidents before Reagan came into power, there was Lyndon
Johnson. He was relentless in the pursuit of his own ambitions, brash in
personality, and totally unfamiliar with modesty, as one episode shows.
German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard, while visiting LBJ at his ranch, said:
"I understand you were born in a log cabin." "No, no," Johnson replied.
"You have me confused with Abe Lincoln, I was born in a manger."
It's revealing incidents like this that make this book fun to read when
the title itself, at the outset, forebodes that it may be a dry-as-dust
piece of work.
Readers who may eventually go out and purchase a copy will be glad to
learn that there are numerous interesting, hitherto unknown, accounts from
the lives of these past Presidents that add much spice to the book. The
authors show how the thin thread of nurture that links childhood to
adulthood often, later in life, determine a leader's policies on global
issues. So it can be said with some small degree of accuracy that the hand
that rocks the cradle influences the world.
One thing is clear as one scans the last pages of the volume: although
all the 10 statesmen had mighty powers, fallibility was also very much
part of their mettle. And it is to the everlasting credit of some of these
men (and to the benefit of the nation they led) that the strength of their
character prevented some mistakes from turning into global catastrophes.
Read this book if it is your inclination to learn in greater depth the
background of great statesmen or natural born leaders. It is a study of,
not so much the White House or America, but essentially the unique
individual characteristics of 10 men who overcame the odds, who chose
their paths whether by design or by accident, to attain the highest office
in America.
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