The Modern Presidents – A Rough Guide

Truman

Although he was never popular at the time, Truman’s presidency is now regarded as a major, even a ‘near great’ one. He ended the Second World War, sanctioned the use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and helped to create the Cold War and the public and international support for containing international communism. Although, like Democrats before and after him, he was frustrated in domestic politics by the ‘Conservative Coalition’ of conservative Southern Democrats and Republicans who opposed his attempts at extending social welfare and civil rights measures his presidency marked a defining moment in America’s post-war history.

Eisenhower

Ike’s presidency was not noted for major accomplishments at the time but many now regard it as a notably successful one. Ike presided over a generally prosperous economy, ended the Korean war, and crafted a largely successful national security policy. Some see the 1950s as a tie of complacency, others as one when, with the vitally important exception of the civil rights movement. America was at peace with itself before the turbulent 1960s opened up major domestic divisions and conflicts.

Kennedy

Arguably the most overrated and under-achieving president of modern times. Unable to pass significant domestic measures, Kennedy oversaw the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 and increased American involvement in Vietnam (where, Oliver Stone’s JFK notwithstanding, there is little evidence to suggest he would have done anything differently from his successor). Kennedy’s great achievement in the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 was significant, but averting a nuclear war whose advent he had partly participate in hardly amounted to a positive resume. Revered more after his death than during his life, the perception of the Kennedy presidency as one of great achievement is more about the ‘Camelot’ myth (invented by Jackie Kennedy and then deliberately popularised by sympathetic journalists after JFK’s assassination) than policy substance or positive achievements.

Johnson

A landslide victory in 1964 helped Johnson to persuafe a compliant (and overwhelmingly Democratic) Congress to enact major pieces of ‘Great Society’ legislation. The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were the great victories of the civil rights movement. But Johnson’s disastrous escalation of war in Vietnam not only contributed to America’s first military defeat, but also stoked fires of inflation and social disquiet at home. Beset by urban unrest, race riots and anti-war demonstrations. LBJ’s presidency ended in a shattered fashion when he announced in March 1968 that he would neither seek nor accept the Democratic Party (re)nomination for president.

Nixon

For all of Nixon’s political skills and achievements, the two great scandals of modern American politics – Vietnam, and the disgrace of Watergate and the first and only presidential resignation – overshadowed all else that he achieved. Nixon was a pragmatic conservative who nevertheless signed into law a remarkable raft of liberal measures from health and safety laws to environmental protection and affirmative action programmes (albeit partly to divide his Democratic opponents). Recognition of China, the end of the Vietnam War, and détente with the Soviets amounted to a set of innovative foreign policy achievements. Although few would have agreed at the time, Nixon proved surprisingly effective at bringing the country together at a time of intense domestic controversy and international instability.

Ford

Selected by Nixon as his vice president and then succeeding to the White House when Nixon resigned, Ford’s brief two years in office occurred with America in the midst of domestic and international upheaval. Faced by an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress elected in the Watergate-backlash 1974 midterm elections, Ford had little opportunity to craft a meaningful policy agenda, but he nevertheless restored a measure of dignity to the office and only narrowly lost the 1976 election.

Carter

Although some analysts have sought to ‘re-valuate’ Carter’s presidency in a positive light, few such attempts have been convincing. Despite – or perhaps partly because of – his formidable intellect, Carter’s presidency was the epitome of a naïve and arrogant chief executive, totally inexperienced in the ways of Washington, inept in his handling of the media and obtuse in his understanding of how to appeal either to Congress or the public. Although his presidency saw some political successes (the Panama Canal Treaty, Middle East peace agreements), it is remembered more for galloping inflation and unemployment, the energy crisis, the Soviets invading Afghanistan, and the Iranian hostage crisis. Carter’s personal foibles (declaring how, while rafting, his boat was attacked by ‘killer rabbits’) left him as one of the least presidential chief executives of modern times. Much as his successor was to prove that lack of intellectual gifts was no barrier to presidential success, so Carter demonstrated that intelligence alone was no guarantee of effective leadership.

Reagan

Celebrated by many, demonized by others, Reagan’s greatest achievement was to restore America’s national self-confidence. Regan’s economic policies would have shamed a Keynesian in increasing the budget deficit to $4trillion by the end of his two terms. His presidency was also marked, after 1981, by decreasing congressional support and bitterness between the White House and Capitol Hill. However, many commentators (some enthusiastically, others reluctantly) credit Reagan with playing the key role in bringing about the beginning of the end of the Cold War. For his admirers, Regan’s defence build-up, sponsorship of the Strategic Defence Initiative (or ‘Star Wars’), and implacable anti-communism convinced the Soviets finally to negotiate serious arms reductions. Reagan’s sincere hatred of nuclear weapons, his pragmatism and political skill made him open to Mikhail Gorbachev’s overtures and able to convince the sceptical Republican Right to accept meaningful reductions in the nuclear arsenal. His presidency has become as much a reverential historic example for conservatives as FDR’s is for liberals.

Bush

Arguably one of the most talented foreign policy presidents of modern times and the least interested or successful domestic chief executive, Bush was ‘an American Tory’. The spiritual opposite of Groucho Marx, he never met a club he didn’t want to belong to and his patrician sense of noblesse oblige contributed to the lack of empathy many Americans felt towards him by the end of his first term in office. Bush antagonised conservative Republicans by agreeing to tax increases in 1990, despite his 1988 ‘read my lips, no new taxes’ election pledge, and displeased Democrats by a lack of domestic policy initiatives. Yet his foreign policy achievements – assembling and leading an effective coalition against Iraqi forces in Kuwait 1990-1, presiding over the revolutions in Eastern Europe and the reunification of Germany and the break-up of the USSR (without exploiting them or harming their transformations) – are among the most impressive of post-war US presidents.

Clinton

At least as politically talented as Reagan, and far more intellectually gifted, Clinton remained an enigmatic figure during his two terms as president. Elected as a New Democrat, he governed as an Old Democrat for his first two years in office, only to revert to type in the face of Republican control of Congress from January 1995. His strategy of ‘triangulation’ helped to win him re-election easily in 1996, but the impeachment proceedings against him in 1998-9 – though unsuccessful – cast him as the lamest of lame duck presidents. His achievements were relatively few and were clouded by his affair with Monica Lewinsky and impeachment. Ironically, he completed the ‘Reagan Revolution’ with a far reaching reform of welfare, devolution of responsibilities to the states, and a balanced budget agreement. For progressives, Clinton’s greatest failure was his inability to achieve some form of universal health coverage for Americans. Yet to many his lack of clear doctrinal belief – pragmatism to some, absence of principle to others – matched an era of remarkable peace and prosperity in America, the first era of such prolonged good times since the 1920s.