The Ex Files
Hess, Stephen
The Ex Files Former presidents aren't what they used to be. BY STEPHEN HESS Shortly after Dwight Eisenhower left the White House in 1961, I got a call from Bryce Harlow, the go-between on all...
...He may be right...
...In terms of post-presidency influence, the case is obvious for John Quincy Adams, who had a distinguished career in the House of Representatives...
...A president needs "organizational capacity...
...One sees attributes necessary to be a good president that are irrelevant to being a good ex-president...
...But what ultimately explains the Carter phenomenon is his drumbeat of opposition to the policies of his successors, starting with lobbying heads of state to oppose President George H.W...
...Then compare Greenstein to Upde-grove...
...Bush, Carter, and Ford, although the ex-presidents didn't tell him anything we don't already know except that Bush "implied" he's not as close to Vice President Cheney as he once was...
...Ike was planning a pleasant retirement, he said, that did not include many of the little chores necessary to remain useful in politics, such as answering unwanted letters and sending congratulatory messages...
...Of Carter's lack of "political skill" when in the White House, Greenstein writes, "Rather than viewing compromise as the essence of politics, he seems to have perceived it as a readiness to do what one knows is wrong...
...He seems to like everyone, with the possible exception of Nancy Reagan while she was first lady...
...This was a standard ex-president's list, and all of Updegrove's subjects managed to get their libraries, publish their memoirs (except Bush), and receive just compensation for the activities they chose to undertake...
...He believed that we elect one president at a time and he would support the present president if asked and if he could...
...How much ex-presidents accomplish beyond this level of achievement depends on how high one sets the bar...
...And even Carter's "cognitive style" as president, faulted by Green-stein, helps to make him the most successful author among ex-presidents since Ulysses S. Grant...
...returned to Gettysburg for posting and occasional correction...
...Theodore Roosevelt, who divided the Republican party in 1912...
...The point of the story is that the general, as he then wished us to call him, was following the path of most former presidents...
...The author, an ex-publisher of Newsweek, adds to the usual secondhand accounts by interviewing several staffers and George H.W...
...There have been 34 "former presidents...
...Most notable, of course, has been the Bush-Clinton relief team...
...Mark K. Updegrove believes that this is importantly changing...
...The Republican National Committee wondered whether I would take on these duties...
...So for the next two years there was a steady stream of boxes put on Trailways buses in Gettysburg, dumped on my desk on K Street, Stephen Hess, Distinguished Research Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, is the author, most recently, of Through Their Eyes: Foreign Correspondents in the United States...
...The author's style is serviceable and his tone is upbeat...
...Bush on Kuwait in 1991, through opposing President Bill Clinton on North Korea and upstaging him on Haiti in 1994, to challenging President George W. Bush on Cuba and Iraq...
...The current crop of ex-presidents seems to be living longer and staying healthier...
...William Howard Taft, who became chief justice of the United States...
...Unfortunately, it is not directly addressed by Updegrove...
...BY STEPHEN HESS Shortly after Dwight Eisenhower left the White House in 1961, I got a call from Bryce Harlow, the go-between on all matters Republican in Washington...
...But what does an ex-president organize...
...Labeling Right and Wrong, however, is a major feature of Carter's post-presidency success...
...Updegrove's book consists of an introduction and short chapters—23 to 31 pages each—on the post-presidencies of Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, padded with summaries of their presidencies and even pre-presidencies...
...But I need more evidence that they are also becoming more influential...
...Andrew Johnson was elected to the Senate, but this didn't amount to much...
...Look for part of the answer in a little book by the Princeton political scientist Fred Greenstein, The Presidential Difference, in which he distills the qualities a president needs to succeed...
...administration has taken," according to the Nobel committee chairman...
...Why Jimmy Carter, universally characterized as a failed president, has become a phenomenon as a post-president is, to me, the most fascinating question that could be asked of "second acts...
...The Nobel Prize was given to Carter in 2002 "as a criticism of the line that the current (U.S...
...Or liabilities become assets...
...A unique influence of Jimmy Carter is that his status as a former president of the United States makes European and American intellectuals feel good about their anti-Americanism...
...Johnson with her memoirs, if needed, and "get his estate and various business interests in order...
...But I would contend that, so far, only one of the nine has had a public policy impact that exceeds the celebrity that automatically comes with having once been president of the United States...
...When LBJ left the White House, reports Updegrove, he told aides that his objectives were to write his memoirs, do a series of TV interviews with Walter Cronkite, build his presidential library and a school of public affairs at the University of Texas, assist Mrs...
...He was an elderly gentleman not interested in any longer actively influencing public policy...
...Those to whom the nation has given so much are expected to be "good citizens," and the Truman-to-Clinton group has certainly devoted much time and effort to many worthy causes...
...and Jimmy Carter, to be discussed later...
Vol. 11 • September 2006 • No. 47
