Thomas J. Craughwell - Failures of the Presidents: From the Whiskey Rebellion and War of 1812 to the Bay of Pigs and War in Iraq

FAILURES OF THE PRESIDENTS

FROM THE WHISKEY REBELLION AND WAR OF 1812 TO THE BAY OF PIGS AND WAR IN IRAQ

THOMAS J. CRAUGHWELL
WITH M. WILLIAM PHELPS

UNTIL RECENTLY, THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH WAITED FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE death of a candidate for sainthood before beginning the investigation into his or her life and merits. Centuries of experience had taught the Vatican that when someone with a reputation for holiness dies, a great emotional outburst naturally follows, as happened with the death of Pope John Paul II. But wait fifty years, and all the hysteria as well as the hyperbole will have settled down, and the men whose job it is to examine the lives of potential saints can go about their business like scholarsin a judicious, methodical, and rational manner.

Something similar happens when an American president leaves office, or leaves this world. Washington correspondents, political pundits, and cable news commentators vie with one another to make the most sweeping statementsand quotable sound bitesabout the success or failure of the former presidents administration. It cant be helped; the format of twenty-four-hour news coverage demands on-the-spot assessments, and then assessments of the assessments.

But as with sorting out saints, weighing the successes and failures of a presidency takes time. History will always have its say, but many years may pass before it speaks. Harry S. Truman is a classic case. He left the White House in 1953 in near disgrace with an approval rating down around 22 percent. Even president-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower snubbed Truman, at first refusing his invitation to a pre-inaugural luncheon at the White House, then failing even to make the customary courtesy call on the outgoing president and first lady. Instead, the general sat in his car outside the White House, waiting for President Truman to come to him.

FOR MANY AMERICANS THE IMAGE OF THE SCORCHED WRECKAGE OF AN AMERICAN C-130, WHICH COLLIDED WITH A U.S. HELICOPTER DURING A FAILED MISSION TO RESCUE HOSTAGES IN IRAN IN 1980, REMAINS A BRUTAL REMINDER OF THIS JIMMY CARTER FOREIGN POLICY FAILURE.

Twenty years later, Trumans reputation was reborn thanks to Merle Millers popular book Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman, published in 1974, followed the next year by the one-man show Give em Hell, Harry! Truman, once derided as Franklin D. Roosevelts hapless successor, a man entirely out of his depth in postWorld War II politics, was now hailed as a feisty, straight-talking man of the people who fought for his principles, and perhaps was ahead of his time. He urged Congress to pass a national health insurance program, saying, The health of American children, like their education, should be recognized as a definite public responsibility. (Sadly, Trumans proposal was rejected, thanks in part to the American Medical Association, which campaigned against the program, claiming it was socialized medicine and calling the Truman administration followers of the Moscow party line.)

Even Richard Nixons reputation has been refurbished a bit. At the time of his resignation in August 1974, Nixon was one of the most intensely despised men in America. He was airlifted by helicopter off the White House lawn into political exile; by and large he kept out of the public spotlight, although he was a prolific writer of memoirs and many books on foreign policy (The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, Beyond Peace, In the Arena, etc.). In recent years, however, historians have reminded us of Nixons support for environmental protection (he founded the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970) and his call for universal health care. Its not enough to obliterate the stigma of the Watergate debacle, but after the passage of decades, some of his accomplishments mitigate the well-worn impression of Nixon as a complete ogre.

Readers who scan this books table of contents may wonder what happened to the chapter about Bill Clintons impeachment and his scandalous relations with Monica Lewinsky and other women.

The Clinton sex scandals and the charges of perjury and obstruction of justice were tawdry, they were a national embarrassment, and they were a major distraction from the nations business, but my coauthors and I, along with our editors, could not agree definitively that the Clinton scandals, for all the sound and fury that came with them, actually inflicted serious damage on the United States at the time. It could be argued that had he not been distracted by the scandals and the impeachment, Clinton might have been able to broker a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians that could have prevented the Second Intifada of 2000. The suggestion makes for an interesting discussion, but in the end, such discussions are hypothetical.

GROVER CLEVELANDS DECISION TO SEND IN MILITARY FORCES TO QUELL THE PULLMAN LABOR STRIKE IN 1894 SPARKED RIOTS AND ULTIMATELY STAINED HIS LEGACY WITH AMERICAN BLOOD.

ALTHOUGH THE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF INTERNING 120,000 JAPANESE AMERICANS AFTER THE BOMBING OF PEARL HARBOR IN 1941 WERE SLIGHT TO NIL FOR FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, THE DECISION IS AN INDELIBLE STAIN ON THE UNITED STATES REPUTATION FOR PROTECTING CIVIL RIGHTS.

Finally, a word about our method. We are not out to bash any president, nor do we seek to canonize any saints. Our goal has been to get inside their heads, to review the circumstances they faced, consider their options, and understand their motives for acting as they did. Some of their motivations may make us cringe, but it is important nonetheless to try to understand a presidents rationale for sending the U.S. Army against rebellious backwoodsmen in Pennsylvania, for example, or rounding up southeastern Indian tribes who had tried to assimilate into American society and marching them off to Oklahoma.

Our hope is that readers will come away from this book with a finer appreciation of some of the most formative, consequential predicaments that have faced American presidents since the nations founding. We hope, too, that readers will feel some of the sympathetic understanding that historians owe to their subjects. In each chapter we have tried to be fair in presenting a human being in a set of circumstances where he has to make a choice based on the facts as he understands them, and upon the often conflicting views of advisers. His choice will very likely nudge history in one direction or another, but ultimately he cannot know what the consequences of his decision will be.

AT DAWN ON JULY 16, 1794, JOHN NEVILLE, SIXTY-THREE YEARS OLD, CLIMBED