A History of the Presidency

Presidents: A Reference History, (2002) by Henry F. Graff

In the television era, former chief executives do not disappear from the public eye, as Truman did. They may be seen every so often on talk shows and occasionally they are rounded up as a group—as, for instance, on the occasion in November 2000 of the two hundredth anniversary of the White House. With the exception of Ronald Reagan, all of the living former presidents were prominently present at the memorial service in Washington's National Cathedral for the victims of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C., and the hijacked airplane that crashed in western Pennsylvania.

Past presidents are in demand as public speakers, not so much for what they have to say, but as glamorous attractions at business and charitable gatherings. Reagan was widely criticized for accepting $2 million for two appearances in Japan, soon after he left the White House in 1989. But the practice of "cashing in" is now accepted. The commander-in-chief in his post-presidency is recognized as a celebrity-in-chief. George H. W. Bush earns around $4 million annually in fees for about fifty such appearances. Even before he left office, Bill Clinton was being booked for talks for as much as $150,000 apiece.

Illness and Disability

When Andrew Jackson came to office in 1829 heralded as formidable, indestructible Old Hickory, he was in truth a debilitated man. He was still feeling the effects of a pistol shot long before lodged in his left shoulder, and suffering perpetually from intestinal bleeding, possibly caused by the calomel he took for his recurrent dysentery. We can never know how his frailty affected his performance as Chief Executive.

Presidents Polk and Truman, even though they served a century apart, have sometimes been compared as unexpected presidents who showed themselves to be feisty leaders forced to take the country into war. Both had been sickly children. Polk suffered as a boy from a bladder stone, eventually removed by surgery, that robbed him of a normal childhood. He was proud that his career as president and war leader proved he was no longer, as he once called himself, "the meager boy, with pallid cheeks, oppressed and worn with disease."

Truman, too, endured a boyhood blighted by illness. At the age of eight, paralyzed by the effects of diphtheria, he had to be wheeled around in a baby carriage. Amply coddled, he became, simply stated, a sissy. Indeed, he liked to believe that he could arrange his sister's curls better than his mother could. But he was determined to be manly. Growing up he set his heart on winning an appointment at the Military Academy at West Point, but this ambition was frustrated by his "flat eyeballs" (his own designation). In World War I he showed his mettle as an officer in an artillery unit and this service in uniform had an abiding influence on his political life. As president he demonstrated enormous respect for military men, including especially Generals Mark Clark, George C. Marshall, and Dwight D. Eisenhower.