Epigraph
1. John Dos Passos, The Ground We Stand On (1941).
Introduction
1. Thomas Jefferson, Inaugural Address, 1801.
2. Richard Rovere, Senator Joe McCarthy (1959).
3. Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (1948), xxxvi.
4. Gerald Ford, Inaugural Address, August 9, 1974.
5. FDR speech, June 27, 1936.
Chapter 1 Theodore Roosevelt: “Master Therapist of the Middle Classes”
1. David Kamp, “Whether True or False, a Real Stretch,” New York Times, December 30, 2008.
2. Ibid, 306; William E. Leuchtenburg, The American President: From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, 36, 38–39.
3. Leuchtenburg, 52–53; Hofstadter, 275–78 and 306–7; H. W. Brands, T.R.: The Last Romantic, chapter 13, especially pp. 356–57, also 505–6.
4. Hofstadter, 291–95, 297–99; Leuchtenburg, 47, 59; Brands, 507, 512–13, and 517–18, chapter 21, especially pp. 541–42.
5. Leuchtenburg, 47–48.
6. Brands, 471–73 and 476–77.
7. Ibid., 466–71.
8. Ibid., 482–88.
9. Leuchtenburg, 67–68.
10. Brands, The Last Romantic.
11. See Brands, 528–40; and “Milestones in U.S. Foreign Relations: TR and the Russo-Japanese War,” Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State.
12. Brands, 578–83 and 605–16.
Chapter 2 Woodrow Wilson: Triumph and Tragedy
1. Brands, 309–10; John Milton Cooper, Jr., Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, 133.
2. Cooper, 73 and 182; and Hofstadter, 318–19.
3. Cooper, chapter 3, p. 58 for the quote; H. W. Brands, Woodrow Wilson, chapter 1, pp. 17–18 for the quote. And the final quote is in Patricia O’Toole, The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made, 41.
4. On Harding, see Cooper, chapter 6, p. 488.
5. Ibid., 128; O’Toole, 45.
6. Cooper, 187; Hofstadter, 331–37.
7. Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 93.
8. Hofstadter, 351–67.
9. O’Toole, 425–32, 446, and 448.
10. Dean, 74.
Chapter 3 Franklin D. Roosevelt: Prophet of a New Order
Much of this chapter rests on my two FDR books: Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (1995 edition), and Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life (2017); and my American Style of Foreign Policy: Cultural Politics and Foreign Affairs (1983), especially chapter 5.
1. George H. Gallup, The Gallup Poll, 1935–1948, see the polls for 1937 and 1938.
2. Eric Rauchway, “Great American Actor,” Times Literary Supplement, April 27, 2018.
3. T. Harry Williams, Huey Long.
Chapter 4 Harry S. Truman: The Tribulations of a Great President
1. On Truman’s vice presidency, see David McCullough, Truman, chapters 7 and 8, especially pp. 327–28, 320, 339, and 342. Also, Robert Dallek, Harry S. Truman, chapter 2.
2. On the opening of the Truman presidency, see McCullough, chapters 9 and 10.
3. Gallup Poll, I, 512, 521–23, 527, 537, 557, 564–65, 567–68, 573, 581–82, 584, 587–88, 590–91, 594, 604, 606, 613, and 617.
4. McCullough, 586–89; Gallup Poll, 722.
5. Gallup Poll, 628, 632, 636, 640, and 661.
6. Ibid., 727, 735, 739, 744–45, and 759.
7. The election is fully covered in McCullough, chapter 14.
8. On the hydrogen bomb, McCullough, 756–58; Truman’s Inaugural Address is available online. The Acheson quote is in McCullough, 755. For the rest, see Dallek, The American Style of Foreign Policy, chapter 6.
9. McCullough, 887–94 and 903–14.
10. See Wikipedia for presidential rankings that, of course, include Truman.
Chapter 5 Dwight D. Eisenhower: The General as Peacemaker
1. Washington Post, February 22, 2019. Tom Wicker, Dwight D. Eisenhower, chapter 1; the quotes are from pp. 1, 8, 10, and 17.
2. Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President, 20–24, 116, 160, 201, and 253.
3. Ibid., 24, 48, 115, 158, and 299–301.
4. Associated Press, “Text of Gen. Eisenhower’s Wheeling Address,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, September 25, 1952, 6A.
5. Ambrose, 460. Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace, 50–51, 53, 651–54, and 707. “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways,” Wikipedia.
6. Gallup Poll, 1119, 1251, 1401–2, 1507, 1567, 1572–73, and 1724. Peter Lyon, Eisenhower: Portrait of the Hero, 409; Wicker, 96; Smith, 715–26.
7. Wicker, 27–28; Lyon, 469–70 and 534–35; Smith, 557–61 and 573–77.
8. Wicker, 23–24 and 81–82.
9. Smith, 617–27.
10. Lyon, 588–92 and 607–14.
11. Smith, 607–16.
12. George C. Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975, chapter 2.
13. Blanche Wiesen Cook, The Declassified Eisenhower: A Startling Appraisal of the Eisenhower Presidency, 158–61. Also see Jeff Broadwater, “Eisenhower and the Anti-Communist Crusade,” and William Bragg Ewald, Jr., “Who Killed McCarthy?” in Michael S. Mayer, ed., The Eisenhower Presidency and the 1950s. The best argument for Ike’s part in bringing down McCarthy is in David A. Nichols, Ike and McCarthy: Dwight Eisenhower’s Secret Campaign against Joseph McCarthy (2017).
14. Smith, chapter 25, “Suez.”
15. Lyon, 753–58; Smith, 743–46.
16. Smith, 746–51; Gallup Poll, 1586, 1596, 1617, and 1627.
17. Lyon, 809–15; Smith, 752–55.
18. Lester Langley, The United States and the Caribbean in the Twentieth Century, 212–18; Julia E. Sweig, Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, 74–79; Ambrose, 615.
19. Gallup Poll, 1699–1701.
Chapter 6 John F. Kennedy: The Making of an Icon
This chapter is largely based on my book An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917– 1963.
Chapter 7 Lyndon B. Johnson: Flawed Giant
This narrative is largely drawn from my two volumes on LBJ, Lone Star Rising (1991) and Flawed Giant (1998).
Chapter 8 Richard M. Nixon: America in Crisis
This chapter is largely based on my book Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (2007) and John A. Farrell, Richard Nixon: The Life (2017).
1. The best up-to-date narrative of the scandal is in Farrell, Nixon.
Chapter 9 Jimmy Carter: The Moralist as Politician
The principal sources for this chapter are Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (1982) and Stuart E. Eizenstat, President Carter: The White House Years (2018).
1. New York Times, October 3, 2018.
2. On LBJ and nuclear weapons in Vietnam, see Michael Beschloss, Presidents of War (2018).
3. Gary Sick, “The Election Story of the Decade,” New York Times, April 15, 1991; Neil A. Lewis, “House Inquiry Finds No Evidence of Deal on Hostages in 1980,” New York Times, January 13, 1993.
Chapter 10 Ronald Reagan: The Media President
1. See Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States (2018), 624–27; Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (2000).
2. Cannon, 234–36, 332, and 438–40.
3. Ibid., 339–90; see especially pp. 339–40, 343, 350–51, 365, 383, 386, and 389.
4. Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (1984), 284–317.
5. The best book on Gorbachev is William Taubman, Gorbachev: His Life and Times (2017); Cannon, 666–77.
6. Cannon, 671–80, 685–92.
7. Ibid., 695–710.
Chapter 11 Trump: In the Shadow of History
1. Orlando Sentinel, June 18, 2019.