Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House [Hardcover]

F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "There are no second acts in American lives", but more and more, our former presidents are proving him wrong. No longer fading into the background upon leaving the highest office in the land, ex-presidents perform valuable services as elder statesmen and international emissaries - and by pursuing their own agendas. From Eisenhower taking Kennedy to the woodshed (literally) on the Bay of Pigs crisis, to Carter earning the Nobel Peace Prize, to Bush Sr. and Clinton joining forces in an unlikely partnership for tsunami and Hurricane Katrina relief, the author examines the increasingly important roles that former presidents assume in our nation and throughout the world.

Through interviews with former presidents, first ladies, family members, friends, and staffers, the author also delves into the very human stories that play out as the modern ex-presidents - from Truman to Clinton - adjust to life after the White House and attempt to shape their historical legacies. In this, the first narrative history of the modern post-presidency, Mark K. Updegrove makes a refreshingly unique contribution to literature on the American presidents.

 

"Mark K. Updegrove's Second Acts is a smart and provocative look at the most exclusive club in America – ex-presidents. Highly recommended!"
—Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History and Director of the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Tulane University

"Former presidents have been likened to Cinderella after the ball. In this intimate, often surprising group portrait, Mark Updegrove reveals how our ex-presidents since Truman have dealt with the loss of power that is their pumpkin. From Ike struggling to master the intricacies of the dial tone, to LBJ raging like Lear on the Perdenales [River], to Jimmy Carter, the Extra President--Updegrove gives us riveting history by twilight. His evening stars cast a memorable glow."--Richard Norton Smith, president historian, Scholar in Residence, George Mason University

"Mark Updegrove's Second Acts is a fascinating read about a subject that has been neglected for too long. It is history at its best; a well researched and well told narrative that illuminates the recent past in surprisingly unexpected ways. Filled with wit as well as wisdom, Second Acts is a delight."--Don Carleton, Director, University of Texas Center for American History

" Highly recommended."--Library Journal

"For those interested in the former presidents, this popular history will do the trick."-- Publishers Weekly

"Revealing in detail and context."--Kirkus Reviews

From the Introduction...

 

After arriving back in his native Independence, Missouri, upon leaving the White House, Truman was asked by a member of the press what he was going to do first. Truman replied humbly, “Take the grips up to the attic,”[R1] a remark that set the tone for the modest post-presidential chapter he had begun. There is little doubt that what came after he stowed his bags securely away was as uncertain to him as it was to anyone wondering what a man does after descending from the pinnacle of power. But the evolution of the post-presidency since Truman left office over a half a century ago has been as dramatic as America’s rise in the world. In contrast to their predecessors, “formers” since Truman’s day are living longer, doing more, and in a position to wield greater influence on U.S. policy, effect change in the U.S. and abroad, accumulate wealth, and shape their legacies. In effect, the post-White House years have become a new phase of presidential privilege. The stories of Presidents Truman through Clinton in their post-presidential years are revealing not only of the character of those men, but of the growing importance and influence of ex-presidents in the U.S. and abroad in an increasingly small world. Indeed, since the middle of the last century, the magnitude of the post-presidency has grown in tandem with the presidency itself.
Like the American population at large, former presidents are leading longer, healthier lives and remaining active in their “retirement” years. Before Truman, the longevity of a president out of office averaged 11 years. From Truman to Clinton, the average has increased to 15 and counting, with four formers still alive. Gerald Ford, active into his nineties, could easily break Herbert Hoover’s record of living the longest – 31 years -- after his term in office. Jimmy Carter, 81 and still swinging hammers for Habitat for Humanity, could outdistance Hoover and Ford, and Bill Clinton, at 59, threatens to overtake them all.
Prior to Ronald Reagan’s passing at 93, there were as many former presidents living as when Lincoln took office in March 1961 and, for just under a year, a record five ex-presidents were alive – Martin Van Buren, Jon Tyler, Franklin Peirce, Millard Filmore, and James Buchanan -- following a long string of single-term presidencies. Just days into his second term in office, Richard Nixon became the only living president after the passing of Lyndon Johnson. Before Nixon’s death in 1994, he was one of five former presidents who consecutively preceded the incumbent, Bill Clinton.
In the past quarter century, ex-presidents have been used collectively to lend symbolism to significant occasions or causes. In 1981, Nixon, Ford and Carter represented the U.S. at the state funeral of the assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, when the climate in Egypt was deemed “too dangerous” for President Ronald Reagan or Vice President George Bush to attend. Sending a delegation Secretary of State Alexander Haig called “the presidential hat trick” prevented a major breech of protocol on the part of the U.S. as the world’s reigning leaders descended on Cairo for the proceedings. Ford, Carter and Bush stood shoulder to shoulder with President Clinton at the White House in 1994, to show their support of the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement, forming a united presidential front. More recently, in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks in 2001, they reunited with former president Clinton and President George W. Bush in Washington, for the memorial service at Washington’s National Cathedral, symbols of American endurance and continuity. In 2005, after a tragic Tsunami swept over coastal areas of Southeast Asia, leaving untold thousands victimized in it path, Bush dispatched his father and Clinton on a fundraising and humanitarian mission as a sign of America’s generosity and compassion, and tapped them once again to generate relief for the victims of Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans and other parts of the deep South.
Those gatherings and others, including reunions around presidential library openings and funerals, have brought the fraternity of presidents closer than ever -- and the bonds they share as members of “the world’s most exclusive trade union” have led to unlikely friendships. Overcoming the election of 1976 in which they were bitter rivals, Ford and Carter have formed not only an intimate friendship, which Carter has described as “almost like brothers,” but on occasion, an effective bi-partisan alliance. (JC MKU) Through the years they have co-chaired conferences at each other’s libraries, monitored the 1989 national election in Panama, and offered joint statements advocating, among other things, free trade, Israel’s recognition of the Palestinian leadership, and a congressional censure of Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal in lieu of impeachment. Bush and Clinton, who squared off as opponents in the 1992 election, have also become close, traveling the world together in the name of Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina relief and for the funeral of Pope John Paul II like a mismatched pair in a buddy movie. The friendship was manifest in Bush’s invitation to Clinton to visit his family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, in the summer of 2005 for a summer weekend of golf and power boating.
While formers relinquish power, they have always retained influence. In the past, the influence of an ex-president – unless he went back into public service like John Quincy Adams or Taft -- came primarily in the form of playing the role of elder statesman, acting as counselor, mediator or ambassador for those in power or seeking it. James Polk was greatly influenced by the aging Andrew Johnson in his handling of the Mexican War, and in America’s standoff with England over the Oregon Territory. When John Kennedy dealt with the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs fiasco early in his term, he turned to his predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower, for advice. The oldest president to be elected to office to that point and the youngest met at Camp David, as Ike publicly supported his successor and privately took him to task for his mistakes in the matter, counseling him on how to go forward.
Until recent years, the ability of a former president to make a direct impact on the nation and the world was largely contingent on his relationship with the incumbent president. Before Truman tapped Hoover to help feed Western Europe after World War II, Franklin Roosevelt’s advisors suggested that he call Hoover into service in anticipation of the war’s end. FDR’s reply, “I am not Jesus Christ, I do not wake the dead,” all but assured that Hoover would remain on the sidelines despite his desperate desire to make a contribution. Truman’s magnanimous gesture in bringing Hoover back into service effectively resurrected him. Like Hoover, Truman would have liked to avail himself to those in power after leaving office, but an acrimonious relationship his own successor, Eisenhower, meant that his role would be limited largely to that of partisan critic.
Today formers are still called upon by the sitting president and others in power to play the traditional role of elder statesman, but they now often have their own agendas and aggressively pursue them independent of those in power. With the advent of globalization in a world dominated by the U.S., the opportunity for formers to make their marks has increased significantly. Ex-presidents are international celebrities, sought out in all parts of the world, where they can readily have an effect on policy by acting as American ambassadors, emissaries and conduits to the current U.S. administration -- or by pursuing their own agendas.
Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter are not the first ex-presidents to actively seek to influence American foreign policy based on their own deeply formed views. Theodore Roosevelt harangued Woodrow Wilson for his reluctance to get the U.S. involved in the First World War, and was able to hold sway largely because of his enormous popularity and credibility -- neither of which Nixon or Carter had in abundance after their presidencies. But by drawing on the relationships they established with foreign leaders while in office or by virtue of their status as former presidents, both Nixon and Carter were able to successfully pursue foreign policy goals left unfinished when they were driven from office. Nixon traveled throughout the world meeting with heads of state and other leaders, shooting off memos to the State Department, writing books on foreign policy, and sharing his perspectives on world affairs with the media. Despite his tarnished image when he left office, he became a respected, sought-after foreign policy advisor to Ronald Reagan and George Bush, and even formed a surprising alliance with Bill Clinton. Ultimately, through his activist agenda to improve America’s position in the world, he was rehabilitated in the public’s eye. Carter has actively practiced “track-two diplomacy,” establishing and maintaining dialogues with high-level contacts in foreign governments decidedly outside formal “track-one” diplomatic channels. (TUP 90) Though he has often worked at odds with incumbent administrations to push his own agenda, Carter has nonetheless been called upon by the White House to intercede on its behalf on several occasions due to the influence he holds. In 1994, when leadership of a military dictatorship in Haiti refused to cede power to its first democratically elected president, the exiled Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Carter, worked out an agreement with the leaders to step down. Though Clinton was wary of involving the freelancing Carter, he bit his lip and allowed him to broker a settlement as a last resort to avert military action. Carter’s self-appointed role as a world peacemaker has prompted criticism from those who see h...