Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our History - Hidden power : presidential marriages that shaped our recent history

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I never wanted your advice and assistance more in my life. The times are critical and I must have you here to assist me . I can do nothing without you.

JOHN ADAMS TO HIS WIFE, ABIGAIL

I hope some day somebody will take time to evaluate the true role of wife of a President and to assess the many burdens she has to bear and the contributions she makes.

PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN

IT IS MORE THAN STYLE, MORE THAN HAIRDOS AND WHITE HOUSE DECOR AND inaugural gowns and controversies over china and guest lists. The role of presidential spouses (so far only women, hence the ubiquitous unofficial title first lady) is vital to a full understanding of their husbands administrations and the presidency itself. It is time to take up President Trumans challenge.

What is most private in most livesmarriageinevitably has a huge public impact once a couple reaches the White House. At the same time, the public pressures of the presidency reshape the private marital relationship, strengthening some marriages, deadening others, reshaping still others. Some first ladies crumble, like Mary Todd Lincoln; others take over in crisis, like the second Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, without doubt the most powerful first lady in history. For some first ladies, like Pat Nixon, one can only feel immensely sorry, as they seem to wither away from neglect. Others, like Eleanor Roosevelt, Nancy Reagan and Hillary Rodham Clinton, become highly controversial in their own right. And some, like Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson, emerge as nationally admired women who seem to transcend their husbands difficulties.

Inevitably, presidential marriages are different from all others. To get elected to Americas pinnacle of power requires absolute commitment not only from the candidate but from his spouse as well. Presidential couples must surrender most of their privacy and many aspects of family life for their dream. What sort of marriages have as their central purpose the fulfillment of a single burning ambition? What sort of wives are willing to share the exhausting, sometimes humiliating journey? And what happens when they reach the promised land at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

The most confident presidents generally have been those with the healthiest respect for their wives, men who sought and listened to their wives personal and political advice. Whatever Americans may fear about the hidden power of presidential wives, it is unrealistic and unreasonable to expect the president to do without a full partner, both public and private.

A politician needs more than ambition and stamina to succeed. Ideally, he needs a partner who will be a trusted sounding board, a link to the real world from which his power and position isolate him. He needs someone completely trustworthy to whom he can confide his deepest fears and insecurities, a person to whom he can reveal his full appetite for power. I am so devoured by egoism, wrote Winston Churchill, whose marriage was among the happiest and most productive of any world leader in the last century, to his wife, Clementine, in 1916. He continued: I would like to have another soul in another world and meet you in another setting and pay you all the love and honour of the great romances. Unfortunately, devouring egos are rarely capable of paying their partners that sort of romantic attention.

It is as difficult to stop a politician obsessed by power as it is to stop a fast-moving train. The human sacrifice is enormous, but the reward great. The presidential couple instantly becomes two of the most famous people in the world. They are surrounded by sycophants and ceremony. Their arrival is accompanied by the sound of Hail to the Chief; their first view in the morning is of the Washington Monument; their backyard is the Rose Garden; his office, the Oval; their transportation, Air Force One. Loved or reviled, their names forever evoke a time in our lives.

This volume is not another anthology of the lives of first ladies. Rather, it is a study of husbands and wives at the precarious intersection of power, love and marriage. How did both the inner life and public face of White House marriages shape presidential history?

I focus only on the twentieth century, as this is a study of both marriage and the presidency as we have come to know them in the recent past. Still, earlier presidential marriages carry similarly dramatic stories, from John and Abigail Adamss astonishingly tender and productive partnership to the tragic collapse of Mary Todd Lincoln. They are worthy of equal study. While each couples story is of course unique, they all illustrate that the effect of marriage on the presidency(and presidency on the marriage) is far deeper and more profound than commonly realized.

If the present account is sometimes tipped to the womens side of the story, this is deliberate. Too little attention has been paid to the role of first ladies in relation to the policies and administrations of their husbands. A successful presidential candidate identifies the pulse of his time, the issues that most concern people, whereas a first ladys success depends on her grasp of the essence of her times. Lady Bird Johnson, for example, embodied the Ideal Woman of her era: modest but fearless, supportive but smart. During the greatest crisis since the Civil War, she stood by her man without losing her own identity, and in so doing won admiration even from those who disliked her embattled husband. On the other hand, Pat Nixon, withdrawn and self-effacing, seemed out of step with the nation, and her decision to disengage from her marriage and the resulting lack of involvement in her husbands struggle to survive the Watergate fiasco hurt him.