Continuing my three-volumes-at-a-time survey of the American Presidents series, edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. This installment covers the presidencies of 1974-1989.
The recentness of these presidencies is continuing to cast its shadow over these books. Weisberg is a journalist who begins with an anecdote of covering a Reagan presidential trip, and contrasts his thoughts on Reagan at the time with his retrospective evaluation. Brinkley, an academic historian of popular works, actually interviewed Ford for his book, though the President died before the book was completed. Only Zelizer, another public affairs professor, eschews a personal contact with his subject.
Douglas Brinkley on Gerald R. Ford acknowledges some of Ford's blunders, especially in his re-election campaign (abruptly dumping Rockefeller was a big one), and it's not until that point that he drops in LBJ's infamous crude insults of Ford. Appropriately, because the bulk of the book is a rosy-toned exculpation. In this narrative, Ford's well-intended projects, like the WIN buttons, fail not due to their own inanity but through opposition from Congress or public opinion, as if he can't be blamed for failing to consider that. Throughout he's declared to be an honest and straightforward if unimaginative man, yet without saying so the portrait comes out very differently. It took considerable guile and even backstabbing for Ford to rise up the ladder of Republican leadership in the House, and he showed more guile as President in trying to pin blame on Congress for the loss of Vietnam. Also, he willingly participated in the Watergate coverup, both as VP and previously (it was Ford who spiked the Patman investigation, for instance). Nothing is made of the effect of those malign figures Rumsfeld and Cheney on his presidency. There's a lot more under the surface in this book than on it.
Julian E. Zelizer on Jimmy Carter spends the bulk of the book on a chronological series of vignettes of the crises of the first three years of his presidency, framed by full chapters on his brilliant 1976 and disastrous 1980 campaigns, and shorter material on his earlier and later life. In some of these vignettes, Carter shows great skill, not only in his penetrating understanding of issues, but in dealing with Congress and the public, and he had his successes (Middle Eastern diplomacy and establishing a solar energy policy among them). Yet more of the time, increasingly so as he went on, failure to build support for his bleakly tough-minded policies weighted Carter down and cast an air of failure, as did the continuing irritant in the last year of the Iranian hostage crisis, which he was unable to overcome. Though his campaigns as ex-president have been equally brittle and provoking, as an independent agent he has had more freedom to pursue them than as president answerable to the outside forces which battered his term in office.
Jacob Weisberg on Ronald Reagan is fascinated by, how did Reagan get away with not being blamed for so many scandals, unfulfilled promises, and betrayals of his firmest supporters? (He rarely gave the evangelicals the red meat they demanded, and soon entirely gave up on his signal project of shrinking government.) Weisberg concludes that Reagan was a genius at projecting a public image of caring and geniality not visible to those who knew him well. In particular, he was his own best speechwriter, able to convey a misty sacramental vision of America like nobody else could. His detachment could both keep him optimistic in tough times and allow him to sail obliviously above scandal and discord in his administration. This book delves much deeper into its subject's background than the other two here do, for instance tracing his tendency for secret unethical dealings and a convenient inability to remember them when questioned, so characteristic of Iran-Contra, back to his time as president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947-53. Weisberg divides the presidency into alternating chapters on Soviet diplomacy and everything else. Reagan's policy on the former was not warmongering, as his critics thought,* but a coherent two-part plan, pushing military buildup to force the Soviets to sue for peace, succeeded by offering a vision of peace so all-encompassing that few of his advisors believed it. In economics, Reagan refused to connect military buildup with paying for it, so the deficits piled up as Reagan smiled obliviously. Lastly, Weisberg fills the book with many of the president's excellent witty remarks, something we could have used in the book on Lincoln.
*This despite the amazing true fact (unmentioned by Weisberg) that his full name, Ronald Wilson Reagan, anagrams as "Insane Anglo Warlord."
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