America's President: Illusions And Realities - Review

Contemporary Review, Sept, 2001 by Michael F. Hopkins

The American Presidency 1945-2000: Illusions of Grandeur. G. H. Bennett. Sutton Publishing. [pound]20.00. 274 pages. ISBN 0-7509-2277-X.

Clearly designed to coincide with the Presidential Election of 2000, G. H. Bennett's re-examination of the shifting power and reputation of the Presidency is singularly timely given the unprecedented spectacle of the election of the President being determined by the Supreme Court.

G. H. Bennett concentrates on Presidential power in the field of foreign policy because in 'domestic affairs the President had to work with Congress and "recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient", whereas in foreign affairs the President could make the policy of the nation, and as Commander-in-Chief back that policy with force'. Yet foreign policy was also subject to checks from Congress. A recurrent theme is the struggle between the President and Congress. The author measures Presidential power partly by charting the evolving Constitution and partly by analysing both the personal qualities of each President and contemporary circumstances.

The book begins with an outline of the development of Presidential power from Washington to Roosevelt. Mr Bennett concludes that the examples of Washington, Jackson and Lincoln demonstrated that there would be a close association between waging war and what would be considered a strong President, a judgment amply confirmed by Franklin Roosevelt in the twentieth century.

The main body of this study contains chapters on successive Presidents. Each has a sub-title indicating Bennett's view of them. Truman's reads 'give 'em hell, Harry': he believed in firm leadership, in the President setting the national agenda. His term of office was given its sense of direction by his policy of containing Communism. Yet he did not neglect FDR's domestic concerns. In July 1948 his executive order ended segregation in the armed services. The Republican majority in Congress from 1946 onwards made life difficult for him. His failure to secure Congressional approval for US intervention in Korea in 1950 was to be a source of trouble; it was something Johnson later bore in mind in framing policy on Vietnam in the 1960s. Eisenhower deployed 'covert cleverness'. He hid the extent of his exercise of power; he obscured his retention of the active Presidency of FDR; and he frequently used secret methods in his foreign policy. Mr Bennett notes that, 'The Constitution was being undermined by stealth as t he United States waged war on its enemies'. These included domestic dangers as well as foreign enemies. So Eisenhower invoked executive privilege to deny information to Senator McCarthy. On Kennedy the author endorses Seymour Hersh's verdict: JFK was the most charismatic leader in the history of the USA. By personal inclination and Congressional pressure, Kennedy's Presidency was set on a course whereby its success or failure would rest more heavily on foreign affairs than any previous administration.

Johnson's Presidency began with the mistrust generated by the assassination of JFK but it marked the zenith of power for the office. Bennett accepts the view that LBJ has been charged with what went wrong -- the debacle in Vietnam and the violent explosion of racial tensions -- and not with what went right -- the major programme of social reforms. LBJ perhaps relied too heavily on Presidential prerogative as the constitutional basis for his major intervention in Vietnam. The decision not to stand for re-election revealed increased sensitivity to public opinion. But under Nixon there was the sight of the chief executive as villain. Yet his Presidency saw foreign policy successes with a lessening of the Cold War and a negotiated departure from Vietnam. It also witnessed interesting domestic reforms on desegregation, on moving power to the local level and on women's rights.

After these figures, Mr Bennett's sub-titles are less neat and informative. Ford and Carter, whom he dubs an unlikely double act, stressed the moral dimension as they helped to restore confidence in the Presidency. Reagan was the B movie President who yet managed to combine the first rank strengths of many previous chief executives. The author's judgment on Reagan is ambivalent: he calls him a truly great President and then says that many of his achievements were little more than myths. Bush was unloved. Lacking charisma and any talent for projecting a plausible vision, Bush found it difficult to reap electoral benefit from his foreign policy triumphs in the Gulf War and in negotiating the peaceful collapse of Communism. Clinton saw the nation laugh and was testimony to the decline in political participation: he secured just under half of the vote cast in a turnout of 49 per cent in 1996. His Presidency also confronted the paradox in the American public's desire for vigorous defence of their nation's interes ts with a reluctance to accept any casualties in pursuit of that goal. The chapter shows the difficulty of writing on the most recent developments. It lacks a view of Clinton's contribution to the unprecedented period of economic growth during his Presidency. In addition it has nothing to say on the relations between 'Bill and Hilary'.