On Knowing Our Presidents
My sister in Virginia sent this to me.
ON KNOWING OUR PRESIDENTS—
AND OURSELVES IN THE PROCESS
By H.C. Nash
Americans can learn a very great deal if they will study the men they elect to the highest office in the land.
Consider Dwight David Eisenhower, “a son of the prairie” who had nothing but
contempt for the demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy but refused to discredit him in public. It was Ike who thoroughly disliked his 1952 running mate, Richard Nixon, but went along because of party pressures. Thus did the ever-handy hysteria of pervasive “anticommunism” become a staple of political opportunism in both parties.
Consider the health and sexual compulsions of John Kennedy, who had reason to believe he would not live to be 30. A victim of Addison’s disease (systematically hidden from the public), a chronic back problem, and other maladies, he suffered greatly, in the words of Theodore Sorensen, his speech writer, “every day of his life.” By 1963 the FBI had compiled “raw files” on more than thirty women with whom he had been intimate. (Could J. Edgar Hoover have asked for a likelier candidate for blackmail?)
Lyndon Baines Johnson: the prime exemplar of the corruption of mid-century Texas politics. A man perceptive enough to comprehend that his Southern roots would keep him from the White House—barring an event totally unforeseen. A man so crude and aggressive in personal terms that Robert F. Kennedy once referred to him as “a sort of animal,” yet one who went out of his way to comfort the widow of his slain predecessor. Most tragically, a man who comprehended the futility of the nation’s illegal adventure in Vietnam but lacked the courage to find an alternative to military escalation.
Consider Richard Nixon, perhaps the most neurotic bundle of anxiety, insecurity, and paranoia ever to awaken in the White House. At bottom his ambitions were fairly mundane, given the clichés of “the American dream.” He wanted to be a millionaire and—according to his mother Hannah—enjoyed most of all . . . “mashing the potatoes.” In character, a pathological liar and a man deeply attracted to Mob figures and to state-sponsored mass violence.
Gerald Ford: a mediocre politician chosen to succeed Nixon because he was such a pliant (and decent) study in contrast.
Consider Jimmy Carter and the hidden factors that undermined his presidency: 1) a concerted effort to sabotage his administration by CIA personnel whose covert careers had been abruptly terminated by his choice for director of central intelligence; 2) an over-reliance on the counsel of those who advocated loyalty to Reza Shah Pahlavi regardless of consequences “on the ground” in Iran; and 3) a hostage crisis in Tehran covertly and treasonously extended by key figures of the Reagan election campaign in summer of 1980—i.e., George H.W. Bush and William Casey. A moral and well-meaning man defeated by forces beyond his control—an altruist whose worldwide reputation today rests on a quarter century of dogged advocacy in the name of international sanity, mediation, and peace.
Ronald Reagan: A man of the most compelling contradictions whom his own biological son found a personality “no one will ever know” (with the possible exception of Nancy).
A conservative who came to office brandishing the slogan “Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem,” and set in motion economic policies that within a generation would make of the United States the greatest debtor nation on the globe.
Consider George H.W. Bush: our first covert CIA president, a man closely associated since the late 1950’s with fanatical elements that regarded John F. Kennedy “a traitor” because of the Bay of Pigs failure of 1961. Father of an eldest son who has turned out to be the most reckless, incompetent, and anti-intellectual president in modern history.
Bill Clinton: the most charismatic communicator of our time, but one who was himself probably associated with the Central Intelligence Agency as early as his tenure as a Rhodes scholar in England in 1968-1970. (See George Archibald’s article on the subject at www.questia.com/Pm.qst;jsessionid.) This question aside, the most intellectual of our presidents since Woodrow Wilson and a potential rival to Jimmy Carter as the most influential American good-will ambassador of our time.
George W. Bush: Review your copy of the Constitution. Read the newspapers. Sample global opinion. Connect the dots of 9/11. Weep if you truly care for your nation, for the cause of international justice, for the moral imperatives of peace, and for the generations to come.
H.C. Nash is a teacher and writer living in Buena Vista.
ON KNOWING OUR PRESIDENTS—
AND OURSELVES IN THE PROCESS
By H.C. Nash
Americans can learn a very great deal if they will study the men they elect to the highest office in the land.
Consider Dwight David Eisenhower, “a son of the prairie” who had nothing but
contempt for the demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy but refused to discredit him in public. It was Ike who thoroughly disliked his 1952 running mate, Richard Nixon, but went along because of party pressures. Thus did the ever-handy hysteria of pervasive “anticommunism” become a staple of political opportunism in both parties.
Consider the health and sexual compulsions of John Kennedy, who had reason to believe he would not live to be 30. A victim of Addison’s disease (systematically hidden from the public), a chronic back problem, and other maladies, he suffered greatly, in the words of Theodore Sorensen, his speech writer, “every day of his life.” By 1963 the FBI had compiled “raw files” on more than thirty women with whom he had been intimate. (Could J. Edgar Hoover have asked for a likelier candidate for blackmail?)
Lyndon Baines Johnson: the prime exemplar of the corruption of mid-century Texas politics. A man perceptive enough to comprehend that his Southern roots would keep him from the White House—barring an event totally unforeseen. A man so crude and aggressive in personal terms that Robert F. Kennedy once referred to him as “a sort of animal,” yet one who went out of his way to comfort the widow of his slain predecessor. Most tragically, a man who comprehended the futility of the nation’s illegal adventure in Vietnam but lacked the courage to find an alternative to military escalation.
Consider Richard Nixon, perhaps the most neurotic bundle of anxiety, insecurity, and paranoia ever to awaken in the White House. At bottom his ambitions were fairly mundane, given the clichés of “the American dream.” He wanted to be a millionaire and—according to his mother Hannah—enjoyed most of all . . . “mashing the potatoes.” In character, a pathological liar and a man deeply attracted to Mob figures and to state-sponsored mass violence.
Gerald Ford: a mediocre politician chosen to succeed Nixon because he was such a pliant (and decent) study in contrast.
Consider Jimmy Carter and the hidden factors that undermined his presidency: 1) a concerted effort to sabotage his administration by CIA personnel whose covert careers had been abruptly terminated by his choice for director of central intelligence; 2) an over-reliance on the counsel of those who advocated loyalty to Reza Shah Pahlavi regardless of consequences “on the ground” in Iran; and 3) a hostage crisis in Tehran covertly and treasonously extended by key figures of the Reagan election campaign in summer of 1980—i.e., George H.W. Bush and William Casey. A moral and well-meaning man defeated by forces beyond his control—an altruist whose worldwide reputation today rests on a quarter century of dogged advocacy in the name of international sanity, mediation, and peace.
Ronald Reagan: A man of the most compelling contradictions whom his own biological son found a personality “no one will ever know” (with the possible exception of Nancy).
A conservative who came to office brandishing the slogan “Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem,” and set in motion economic policies that within a generation would make of the United States the greatest debtor nation on the globe.
Consider George H.W. Bush: our first covert CIA president, a man closely associated since the late 1950’s with fanatical elements that regarded John F. Kennedy “a traitor” because of the Bay of Pigs failure of 1961. Father of an eldest son who has turned out to be the most reckless, incompetent, and anti-intellectual president in modern history.
Bill Clinton: the most charismatic communicator of our time, but one who was himself probably associated with the Central Intelligence Agency as early as his tenure as a Rhodes scholar in England in 1968-1970. (See George Archibald’s article on the subject at www.questia.com/Pm.qst;jsessionid.) This question aside, the most intellectual of our presidents since Woodrow Wilson and a potential rival to Jimmy Carter as the most influential American good-will ambassador of our time.
George W. Bush: Review your copy of the Constitution. Read the newspapers. Sample global opinion. Connect the dots of 9/11. Weep if you truly care for your nation, for the cause of international justice, for the moral imperatives of peace, and for the generations to come.
H.C. Nash is a teacher and writer living in Buena Vista.
posted by Jackie at 6:11 PM
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