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Summary
Summary
From the author Newsweek called the nations leading presidential historian comes an inspiring narrative chronicling the crucial moments when a courageous president has dramatically changed the future of the United States. of full-color photos.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Don't be afraid!" was George Washington's near-to-last utterance, to the worried doctor at his bedside. The essential founding father's counsel is understood by well-known historian Beschloss (The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany) to set an example for future presidents. Beschloss outlines how several occupants of the Oval Office-including Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, Kennedy and Reagan-combined courage with wisdom to change the future of the country, notwithstanding the slings and arrows they earned. Despite its unpopularity at the time, for instance, Reagan's "strong beliefs combined with his optimism" led him to pursue the policy to abolish nuclear weapons, which helped bring down the Soviet empire peacefully. None of the author's heroes were saints, but rather flawed men sustained by friends, families, conviction and religious faith. With contenders for 2008 already lining up, this well-timed book might, the author hopes, persuade some to take the kinds of "wise political risks that Presidents once did." Perhaps. But knowledgeable readers should look elsewhere for genuine historical insight. The author's broad brushstrokes necessarily restrict him to painting nuanced individuals and complex times in only basic primary colors, and there is little that has not been said before-in some cases, many times. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
The office of the American presidency is unique among Western democracies because it combines the functions of head of state and chief executive. The president has consistently been viewed as the chief driver of national destiny, even during periods of legislative dominance. Although their power may sometimes be illusory, Beschloss, a prominent presidential historian, has found the traits of courage and wisdom to be common and essential in our most successful presidents. Using new sources and providing interesting perspectives, Beschloss examines a variety of actions and decisions taken by presidents under great stress. Although the broad outlines of these actions are familiar, he provides extensive details that are rarely offered in general texts. Some of the more interesting episodes examined here include Washington's decision to fight for ratification of the unpopular Jay's Treaty with Britain, Jackson's struggle against the rechartering of the Bank of the United States, and Truman's decision to support the establishment of the state of Israel, despite vociferous opposition from the State Department. For both scholars and general readers. --Jay Freeman Copyright 2007 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
"PRESIDENTIAL historians" seem to be everywhere these days. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Douglas Brinkley and Richard Norton Smith, all of whom are commonly defined as such, appear frequently on television talk shows and write for op-ed pages. They are consulted when former presidents die, around election time or on the occasion of any notable episode involving the executive branch. Yet no one goes to college or graduate school to study "presidential history." Universities do not offer courses in the subject. So: who or what created "presidential history"? According to a Lexis-Nexis search, the term was coined in 1977 but came into general use only in the mid-1980s. Early on, two publications - Newsweek and The Christian Science Monitor - employed it most frequently, both generically and as applied to a few authors. With nearly twice as many references since 1985 as his closest rival, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss, the author of "Presidential Courage," is clearly the most widely recognized "presidential historian" in the nation. Indeed, NBC News has recently named him its official "presidential historian," the first appointment of its kind. Most presidential historians - like the late Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., to whom the term was also applied - content themselves with writing biographies of individual presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gerald Ford. And Beschloss has done that too, in volumes on John F. Kennedy and Dwight D. Eisenhower, among others. But if any book can be said to epitomize the genre of "presidential history," "Presidential Courage" does, for in 36 short chapters it succinctly narrates nine episodes Beschloss deems appropriate examples of brave leadership by the executive, which he defines in the preface as presidents making "courageous decisions for the national interest, although they knew they might be jeopardizing their careers." Some of his choices are obvious: John Adams, who probably lost the election of 1800 to Thomas Jefferson because he negotiated an end to the quasi war with France against the wishes of many in his own Federalist Party; Franklin Roosevelt, who advocated lend-lease and a draft just before the election of 1940, when he was seeking an unprecedented third term. Some are less familiar: Harry Truman's support for the creation of Israel in 1948 despite the explicitly anti-Semitic sentiments of some of his advisers; Theodore Roosevelt's antitrust attack on the Northern Securities Company and his involvement in settling the anthracite coal strike. One choice, at least, will leave some historians questioning Beschloss's judgment - Andrew Jackson's veto of the charter of the Second Bank of the United States in 1832. Although that expanded use of the presidential veto indeed made "the American future ... very different," historians today are more likely to criticize Jackson for Indian removal than to praise him for increasing presidential power. It is also not clear how Jackson's attack on the hated plutocrat Nicholas Biddle and his bank - an action that in current parlance "played to Jackson's base" of ordinary men who detested privilege - constituted a courageous act that served the national interest but threatened the president's political future. (Beschloss briefly mentions the possibility that as a consequence Jackson might have lost the electoral votes of Pennsylvania, home of the bank.) Although George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, unsurprisingly, are among Beschloss's exemplars of bravery in office, he seems more comfortable when considering modern presidents like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. In his accounts of them he makes extensive use of oral histories (including interviews he personally conducted) as well as memoirs, tapes and documents from their presidential libraries. Although detailing at length Kennedy's initial reluctance to take a stand favoring civil rights demonstrators because he feared losing the South in the 1964 presidential election, Beschloss nevertheless cites Kennedy's eventual actions and speeches in 1962 and 1963 as examples of the courage he celebrates. He quotes extensively from conversations recorded by the White House taping system, showing how Kennedy tried to persuade Martin Luther King Jr. and his allies to forgo direct action, while simultaneously attempting to mollify Southern white Democratic officeholders. The president does not come off very well in this account, even though, with Beschloss, we laud the result: Kennedy's famous television address of June 11, 1963, and his proposed civil rights act, a version of which was adopted in 1964 after his assassination. The Reagan chapters focus on policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union over the years of his presidency. Beschloss attributes Reagan's evident success to his "strong beliefs and optimism," and to the fact that "like the most effective American presidents, Reagan ultimately proved that he was not the captive of his political base but its leader." Still, as with the Andrew Jackson episode, the narrative leaves a reader wondering if the popular Reagan seriously endangered his political future with his actions and therefore whether he truly fits Beschloss's stated criterion for bravery. "PRESIDENTIAL COURAGE" is thoroughly researched in both published and unpublished sources. Beschloss tells us he spent four years working on it; the notes and bibliography together total 77 pages. In the acknowledgments, he thanks eight academic historians who read his manuscript. Presumably, these scholars focused on the facts and Beschloss's understanding of current interpretations. I wish, however, that someone had criticized - and persuaded Beschloss to alter - his prose style. The book is written not only in short, choppy chapters (why devote four chapters to recounting each episode? why not consolidate that information into longer chapters of 30-40 pages?) but also in short, choppy sentences and short, choppy paragraphs. Most paragraphs are just one or two sentences long; few run for more than four or five lines. As a result, the argument appears as the written equivalent of sound bites and is at times hard to follow. One-line digressions are commonplace, as readers are fed a series of interesting but not always relevant tidbits along with Beschloss's narrative of the central events of his chosen episodes. Does it matter, for example, that Kennedy changed his clothes "down to the flesh" at least four times each day? Or that John Adams once stayed in Trenton, N.J., at a house "owned by two maiden sisters named Barnes," who were pleased to have the president as a lodger? Beschloss clearly admires his subjects, yet he might well have cautioned his readers to be wary of presidents whose actions could lead the nation in the wrong direction. At a time when many members of the public have been critical of the leadership offered by recent inhabitants of the White House, it would be instructive if a talented presidential historian like Beschloss turned his attention to missteps. We might learn a great deal from a parallel volume that examined such episodes as Thomas Jefferson's Embargo Act (1807), James Buchanan's inaction in the face of the growing sectional crisis of the late 1850s, Woodrow Wilson's approval of segregation in federal government offices (1913) or Kennedy's authorization of the Bay of Pigs invasion (1961), not to mention Richard Nixon's involvement in the Watergate break-in and cover-up (1972). Perhaps the nation and future presidents can learn from examples of past presidents' errors as well as from examples of their courage. Washington and Lincoln are unsurprising examples of presidential courage. But Andrew Jackson? Mary Beth Norton is a co-author of "A People and a Nation."
Kirkus Review
Historian Beschloss (The Conquerors, 2002, etc.) pens a vivid account of how nine U.S. presidents withstood political firestorms. Inevitably, his lively narrative will be compared to John F. Kennedy's homage to Senate bravery, Profiles in Courage. But Beschloss views his subjects not as saints but as "worried, self-protective politicians" not above vacillation, arrogance and evasion as they steered between national and electoral interests. Recent presidents have not been the only ones who required sentence-parsing. FDR justified breaking his promise, "your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars," by claiming a loophole: It did not apply in case of attack. A few of these figures relished political combat; Theodore Roosevelt aptly styled himself a "rough-and-tumble man." Most, however, abhorred their struggles. Convinced that he would lose his bid for a second term, Abraham Lincoln wrote a private memo pledging cooperation with opponent George McClellan to save the Union between the election and the next inauguration. All of the chief executives profiled here subscribed to John Adams's belief that a president must incur "people's displeasure sometimes, or he will never do them any good in the long run." Some found strength in the examples of heroic predecessors, others in their wives, all in some manner of religious belief. Beschloss recognizes that even the best policy choices come freighted with mixed motives and adverse consequences. In particular, he appraises Andrew Jackson with exquisite balance, noting that Old Hickory's assault on the Second National Bank destroyed a corrupting political influence but also "peddled the dubious notion that America did not need a central bank," leaving Americans to suffer 80 years of boom-and-bust before the Federal Reserve was established. Readers might question some episodes chosen, but it's impossible to fault Beschloss's engrossing characterizations, marvelous scene-setting and judicious assessments. History written with subtlety, verve and an almost novelistic appreciation for the complexities of human nature and presidential politics. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
The high-profile Beschloss pays a visit to all 43 Presidents, considering how they faced their biggest challenges. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Chapter One A Speedy Death to General Washington! In August 1795, at Mount Vernon, drenched by what he called a "violent Rain," George Washington nervously paced down a garden path, elegantly covered by crushed oyster shells. He was desperate to return to the national capital of Philadelphia, but the biblical torrents had washed out roads and bridges. Adding to his frustration, his mail had been cut off. Back inside, as the rains pelted his red shingle roof, spinning the dove-of-peace weathervane, the President bent over his candlelit desk, dipped a quill in black ink and tensely scratched out letter after letter. He was feeling "serious anxiety" in a time of "trouble and perplexities." For twenty years, since the start of the Revolution, he had taken as his due the bands playing "The Hero Comes!" and the lightstruck Americans cheering "the man who unites all hearts." His anointment as President by the Electoral College in 1788 and 1792 had been unanimous. But now the national adoration for Washington was fading. Americans had learned that a secret treaty negotiated by his envoy John Jay made demands that many found humiliating. One member of Congress said the fury against "that damned treaty" was moving "like an electric velocity to every state in the Union." As the public tempest had swelled, some wanted Washington impeached. Cartoons showed the President being marched to a guillotine. Even in the President's beloved Virginia, Revolutionary veterans raised glasses and cried, "A speedy Death to General Washington!" With the national surge of anger toward Washington, some Americans complained that he was living as luxuriously as George III, the monarch they had fought a revolution to escape. Using old forgeries, several columnists insisted that Washington had been secretly bribed during the war by British agents. Still others charged that the President stole military credit from soldiers who had bled and died: "With what justice do you monopolize the glories of the American Revolution?" Reeling from the blows, the sixty-three-year-old Washington wrote that the "infamous scribblers" were calling him "a common pickpocket" in "such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero." One still-friendly gazette moaned, "Washington has been classed with tyrants, and calumniated as the enemy of his country. Weep for the national character of America, for, in ingratitude to her Washington, it is sullied and debased throughout the globe!" President Washington had brought the national furor upon himself by trying to avert a new war with Great Britain that threatened to strangle his infant nation in its cradle. In the spring of 1794, the British were arming Indians and spurring them to attack Americans trying to settle the new frontier lands that would one day include Ohio and Michigan. London was reneging on its pledge, made in the peace treaty ending the Revolutionary War, to vacate royal forts in the trans-Appalachian West -- Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, Michilimackinac. Since Britain was at war with France, British captains seized U.S. ships trading with the French West Indies. Renouncing the agreed-upon border between the U.S. and Canada, Britain's governor in Quebec predicted a new Anglo-American war "within a year." Former Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who hated England and adored France, demanded retaliation against the British. But Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton warned the President not to plunge into a war that America could not win. The religious Martha Washington could not abide Hamilton's Byzantine intrigues or his infidelities to his wife, Elizabeth. When Martha adopted a tomcat, she named it "Hamilton." But for the President, who knew his own shortcomings, Hamilton was an endless fount of provocative ideas, tactics and language. During his first term, Washington had told Hamilton and Jefferson that their gladiatorial clashes over foreign policy, economics and personalities were "tearing our vitals" and had to stop. Instead, Jefferson quit in 1793 and organized an opposition. The new political chasm between Federalists and Jefferson's Republicans killed Washington's old dream of eternal national unity with no need for political parties. Retaining the President's ear, Hamilton urged him to send an "envoy extraordinary" to London. A new Anglo-American treaty could secure U.S. trade on the Atlantic and the Great Lakes, giving their country time to build its economy and defenses and settle its frontier. Then if America one day had to fight off Britain, it would be far better prepared. Washington agreed, but he knew Hamilton must not be the envoy. That would inflame the Jeffersonians. Instead, at Hamilton's suggestion, he chose the aristocratic Chief Justice, John Jay of New York. Privately Jay warned his wife that America might well have to battle England. But in May 1794, before sailing from lower Manhattan to London, he promised a cheering crowd he would do "everything" to "secure the blessings of peace." Soon after Jay's departure, the British reclaimed and fortified one of their old posts on American territory near Detroit. Having jeopardized his prestige to talk with Britain, Washington was furious. He wrote Jay it was "the most open and daring act of British agents in America." Every "well informed" American knew that the British were instigating "all the difficulties that we encounter with the Indians...the murders of helpless women and innocent children." He noted that some wished him to turn the other cheek: "I answer NO!...It will be impossible to keep this country in a state of amity with G. Britain long if the Posts are not surrendered." Jay got the British to forgo such aggravations while they bargained. He assured Washington that Britain felt it was having a "family quarrel" with America, "and that it is Time it should be made up." Jay reported that, excepting the King, the British respected no one more than George Washington. With such "perfect and universal Confidence" in Washington's "personal character," they had taken Jay's presence in London "as a strong Proof of your Desire to preserve Peace." By the start of 1795, Washington heard rumors that Jay had managed to broker a treaty, but the expected dispatch case never arrived. As it turned out, after making a deal in November, Jay had sent the President two copies of the treaty documents by a British ship that was seized by the French on the Atlantic. British sailors had thrown the papers overboard to keep them from French hands. That spring, another ship brought duplicates to Norfolk, Virginia. By stagecoach and horseback, a mud-caked, frostbitten messenger rushed them to Philadelphia, where Washington received them at the President's House at 190 High Street. In 1790, when Washington and his government moved from New York City to the temporary capital of Philadelphia, there was no official mansion for the President. Thus the great man paid three thousand dollars a year to rent the four-story red-brick house owned by Robert Morris, financier of the Revolution and Senator from Pennsylvania.* Morris graciously moved next door to accommodate his old friend. Washington found it "the best Single house in the City" but still "inadequate" for him. For instance, there were "good stables, but for twelve horses only." During renovations, which Washington financed, a house painter allegedly attacked one of the President's housemaids, who shrieked. Face daubed with shaving cream, the half-dressed Washington was said to have kicked the painter down the stairs, crying, "I will have no woman insulted in my house!" The President's servants included eight black slaves selected from the almost three hundred who lived at Mount Vernon. Knowing that Pennsylvania law freed any slave residing there for six months or more, Washington and Martha made sure that each of their slaves was quietly sent home to Virginia every five months or so. "I wish to have it accomplished under pretext that I may deceive both them and the Public," the General wrote a trusted aide, insisting that the ruse "be known to none but yourself and Mrs. Washington." Upstairs at his mansion, Washington frowned at Jay's "Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation." He knew that if he approved it, Americans would excoriate him for truckling to their old oppressor across the sea. Most inflammatory was Article Twelve: America could trade with the West Indies, but not with large vessels. Nor could the U.S. export any products natural to those islands. Jay's deal would also cosset the lucrative British fur trade in the American Northwest. The U.S. would pledge never to seize British assets in America, surrendering an important potential weapon for America's defense. The treaty would also allow the British to keep on halting U.S. exports to France -- and to escape paying reparations for American slaves they had carried off during the Revolutionary War. To keep public indignation from building against the treaty before he sent it to the Senate, Washington ordered Secretary of State Edmund Randolph to keep its contents "rigidly" secret "from every person on earth" -- even the rest of his Cabinet. Unlike his successors, Washington took literally the Constitution's demand that a President ask the Senate's "advice and consent" on treaties. He would not finally decide whether to approve Jay's Treaty until the Senate voted. Vice President John Adams feared the pact would be political trouble. "A Battle Royal I expect at its Ratification, and snarling enough afterwards," he wrote his wife, Abigail. "I am very much afraid of this Treaty!...Be very carefull, my dearest Friend, of what you say....The Times are perilous." On Monday morning, June 8, 1795, two dozen U.S. Senators in powdered wigs and ruffled shirts sat down in Philadelphia's Congress Hall for a special closed-door session on Jay's Treaty. Washington had insisted that the men in the emerald green Senate chamber discuss the treaty in absolute secrecy. The Aurora, published in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin Bache, the Francophile, anti-Washington grandson of the famous Founder, howled that "the secrecy of the Senate" was an insult to "THE SOVEREIGNTY of the people." With no desire to pay for Bache's "daily outrages" against decency, the President had long ago canceled his Aurora subscription. During two weeks of debate, Republican Aaron Burr of New York tried to pit Southern Senators against Jay's Treaty by demanding that Britain pay up for the "Negroes and other property" it had stolen -- mainly from the American South. But Southerners were far more aggrieved by Article Twelve's threat to their exports. Alexander Hamilton, by now a private citizen in New York City, advised Washington to scrap the article in order to save the treaty in the Senate. The President did so, and by a bare two-thirds vote along party lines, the Senate sent Jay's Treaty to the President's House for Washington to sign. To Washington's exasperation, the treaty's contents were no longer secret. A Virginia Republican Senator who reviled it passed a copy to the French minister in Philadelphia, who gave it to Ben Bache. Flamboyantly, the Aurora ripped the veil off what it called Jay's "illegitimately begotten" treaty, that "imp of darkness" approved by a "secret lodge" of Senators. Bache published the entire text in a pamphlet, which he sold up and down the Eastern Seaboard for twenty-five cents. His wife, Peggy, had no opinion about Jay's Treaty. She simply hoped the proceeds would buy her family a new house. Fulminating that Jay's Treaty had "made its public entry into the Gazettes," Washington knew that Bache's attacks were just the start of a national onslaught. At midnight of Independence Day 1795, a Philadelphia throng burned a copy of the treaty and an effigy of John Jay. Crowds in other cities followed suit. Jay mordantly joked that soon he could walk through all of the fifteen United States by night, illuminated only by the glow of all of his effigies burning. Bitter doggerel described the President's envoy crawling on his belly to King George: May it please your Highness, I, John Jay Have traveled all this mighty way.... To show all others I surpass In love, by kissing of your. Girding himself for battle from his home seat of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson found Jay's Treaty an "execrable...infamous act" by the "Anglomen of this country." He warned, "Acquiescence under insult is not the way to escape war." With steam rising from Philadelphia's gravel streets, Washington pondered whether to sign the treaty. From New York, Hamilton wrote the President that his decision should be "simple and plain." Except for Article Twelve, Jay's pact was "in no way inconsistent with national honor" and would avert a ruinous war. Then in early July, a new British insult -- a "Provision Order" that U.S. grain ships sailing toward France be stopped, their cargo confiscated. Edmund Randolph advised the President not to sign the treaty until Britain canceled the Provision Order. Washington asked him to so inform the British minister, George Hammond. Hammond asked Randolph whether Britain could suspend the order long enough to relieve the President's political problems in signing the treaty, then reinstate it. Randolph gave him no answer. When the Secretary of State reported the conversation, Washington sharply told him that he should have told Hammond that the President would "never" sign the treaty unless the Provision Order was permanently revoked. The protest was spreading. When Hamilton defended Jay's Treaty in front of New York's City Hall, people threw rocks, leaving his face bloody. Someone joked that the crowd had "tried to knock out Hamilton's brains to reduce him to equality with themselves." In Boston Harbor, mobs set a British ship aflame. In Philadelphia, they cried, "Kick this damned treaty to hell!" Spearing a copy of Jay's pact with a sharp pole, the revelers marched it to Minister Hammond's house, burned it on his doorstep and broke his windows, with Hammond and his family cowering inside. Thomas Jefferson had not seen the American "public pulse beat so full" on "any subject since the Declaration of Independence." The new Treasury Secretary, Oliver Wolcott, feared the demonstrations might signal the British that Americans sought war. He wrote his mentor Hamilton, "The country rising into flame, their Minister's house insulted by a Mob -- their flag dragged through the Streets...& burnt....Can they believe that we desire peace?" Washington found it "extremely embarrassing" for the British to "see the people of this country divided," with such "violent opposition" to "their own government." He told John Adams he suspected the demonstrations had been inspired by some sinister "pre-concerted plan" to ignite an "explosion in all parts" of the fifteen states. As the man who had sent Jay to London, the President knew that he could be immolated by the firestorm. One Federalist gazette mourned that "to follow Washington is now to be a Tory, and to deserve tar and feathers." Copyright (c) 2007 by Michael Beschloss Excerpted from Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America 1789-1989 by Michael R. Beschloss All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Table of Contents
Preface |
Chapter One A speedy death to general washington! |
Chapter Two Kick this treaty to hell! |
Chapter Three The damnedest liar |
Chapter Four He may retire with undiminish'd glory |
Chapter Five Rivalries irritated to madness |
Chapter Six Oh, that i was a soldier! |
Chapter Seven Rocks and quicksands on all sides |
Chapter Eight The most splendid diamond in my crown |
Chapter Nine I will kill it! |
Chapter Ten Not a man to be forced |
Chapter Eleven I was born for the storm |
Chapter Twelve Who would have had the courage? |
Chapter Thirteen I am going to be beaten |
Chapter Fourteen Too angelic for this devilish rebellion |
Chapter Fifteen A well-meaning baboon |
Chapter Sixteen The country will be saved |
Chapter Seventeen I see dynamite |
Chapter Eighteen Black storm |
Chapter Nineteen A rough-and-tumble man Chapter Twentyi upset them all |
Chapter Twenty-one We must protect the chief! |
Chapter Twenty-two Gloom personified |
Chapter Twenty-three Salute your caesar? |
Chapter Twenty-four We have avoided a putsch |
Chapter Twenty-five No people except the hebrews |
Chapter Twenty-six The right place at the right time |
Chapter Twenty-seven How could this have happened? |
Chapter Twenty-eight I am cyrus! |
Chapter Twenty-nine They never show their passion |
Chapter Thirty Go get him, johnny boy! |
Chapter Thirty-one It's going to be a civil war |
Chapter Thirty-two A man has to take a stand |
Chapter Thirty-three We win and they lose! |
Chapter Thirty-four It left me greatly depressed |
Chapter Thirty-five Don't worry that i've lost my bearings |
Chapter Thirty-six A miracle has taken place |
Epilogue Presidential courage |
Notes |
Sources |
Acknowledgments |
Index |