The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B007UWOVC4 | Format: EPUB
The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity Description
The Presidents Club was born at Eisenhower's inauguration when Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover first conceived the idea. Over the years that followed - and to this day - the presidents relied on, misunderstood, sabotaged, and formed alliances with one another that changed history. The world's most exclusive fraternity is a complicated place: its members are bound forever because they sat in the Oval Office and know its secrets, yet they are immortal rivals for history's favor.
Some presidents needed their predecessors to keep their secrets; others needed them to disappear. Most just needed help getting the job done. Truman enlisted Hoover to help him save Europe; Kennedy turned to Ike on Cuba; Nixon sought Johnson's advice on getting reelected, but then tried to blackmail him; Ford and Carter couldn't stand each other until they saw what they had in common; Reagan and Clinton relied on Nixon as an off-the-books emissary to Russia; Bush put Clinton and his father to work and they became like father and son; and Obama and Clinton became quiet rivals for the same crown.
Journalists and presidential historians Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy unravel the secret compacts, the shared scars, and the private cease-fires from Hoover to Obama. The Presidents Club will change the way we think about the presidency, for the club itself is an instrument of presidential power.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 22 hours and 1 minute
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: April 17, 2012
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B007UWOVC4
It has often been said that the United States Senate is the world's most exclusive club with its one hundred members, but as Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy point out in their excellent new book, "The Presidents Club", living former U.S. presidents have it hands down on exclusivity. This is one club about which we have heretofore known very little, but with a flourish, the authors reveal quite a mosaic.
Beginning with Harry Truman's "rehabilitation" of Herbert Hoover shortly after Truman assumed the presidency in 1945, current and former holders of the office have formed some of the most fascinating relationships borne out of many factors. Truman needed expertise on European relief after the Second World War so he turned to Hoover, who had made a name for himself doing the same after World War I. In turn they became friends, something that would happen often to presidents, especially of opposing parties.
We get more than a glimpse of super egos needing to be wanted and stroked. There are "gentlemanly" ex-presidents and "rogue" ones as well. They're kind of like a big family...often colliding with one another, making up afterwards, only to set off on another crash course along the way. A wonderful contribution of this book is the summaries of presidential discussions, leaving the reader with the wonder of how fragile these men are. All of them. Some chapters are better than others. Nixon's manipulation of LBJ is juicy, as is the drama that played out between Ford and Reagan...not only at the 1976 GOP convention but at the one four years later, too. And there's Jimmy Carter going way out of bounds on a trip to North Korea to the utter dismay of Bill Clinton.
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