Affairs of State: The Rise and Rejection of the Presidential Couple since World War II by Gil Troy

From the Publisher

The emergence of the presidential couple is one of the most important and contentious developments in America's postwar political history. After the exceptional Roosevelts, the change began innocently enough, with Mamie becoming the first First Lady to remain on the campaign trail without her husband - receiving nothing but praise as a result. By the 1960s, with Lady Bird lobbying for legislation on TV, the first signs of protest appeared. In the 1970s, when Jerry and Betty Ford increased East Wing staffing and press coverage, the idea of the presidential couple was institutionalized, but Betty became so controversial she may have cost Jerry his chances for election. With Hillary Clinton, the backlash can no longer be denied. Though Bill announced during his first campaign that the country would be getting "two for the price of one," by his second he and Hillary appeared to have learned a painful lesson. She had morphed into Nancy Reagan, speaking out for children's issues, loyally supporting her husband, and denying any interest or role in policymaking. As Gil Troy points out, the most successful recent couple has been the Bushes, who modeled themselves after an older generation. The lesson is clear: First Ladies can be far more helpful than ever before with image-making, but not with substantive legislative or managerial functions. The country does not want an un-impeachable, un-removable partner to take a politically active role.

Publishers Weekly

This overview of post-WWII U.S. presidential couples by Troy, a history teacher at Canada's McGill University, is deeply engrossing. He claims the book "is about image... insofar as the First Couples have sought to fulfill America's unrealistic standards for the presidency," and about substance as "a story of increasing First Lady involvement in politics, and voters' rejection of that involvement." According to Troy, the wives of presidents who followed Eleanor Roosevelt were scrutinized as half of a political partnership and expected to develop an appropriate public persona. Drawing on extensive research, Troy examines each partnership and evaluates whether the marriage helped the presidency. Truman's emotional dependence on Bess, who disliked politics, distracted him, while Mamie Eisenhower and Barbara Bush filled supportive roles. According to Troy, the presidencies of Ford, Carter and Clinton were impacted negatively by the public's perception of their wives as wielding too much power. In his otherwise absorbing history, the author's advice for first couples, that wives be deferential, is reminiscent of 1950s' women's magazines. Photos not seen by PW. (Jan.)

Library Journal

Troy (See How They Ran: The Changing Role of the Presidential Candidate, LJ 11/1/91) presents the first study of the political relationship of presidential couples, although most of his thought-provoking, readable book is focused on examining the paradoxes and no-win situation of the First Lady. Since Eleanor Roosevelt, the role of the president's wife has expanded and, at times, has been distorted by a media that invades the lives of the presidential family and creates unrealistic expectations of what the First Lady (perhaps First Gentleman, one day) can do. Through narratives of all the couples after FDR, Troy presents a convincing case that the public wants the First Lady to symbolize traditional family values and not share power through a co-presidency. The "who elected you?" mantra haunted Betty Ford, Rosalyn Carter, and Nancy Reagan and now flails at Hillary Clinton for being too ambitious. A fine selection for academic and most public libraries.-Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Township Lib., King of Prussia, Pa.

Kirkus Reviews

Emphasizing the increasingly complex political and cultural role of the First Lady, Troy (History/McGill Univ.; See How They Ran, 1991) takes an unusual look at the travails of ten modern presidential couples, from the Trumans to the Clintons.

While First Ladies could be popular or unpopular, and could always exert an influence on policy (most dramatically in the case of Woodrow Wilson's wife, Edith, after Wilson's stroke in 1919), Troy argues, only recently has the concept of the "First Couple" emerged, in which the role of the president's wife helps define the direction and success of her husband's administration. Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower, and Jackie Kennedy were high-profile women whose popularity contributed to their husbands' electoral successes, but in contrast to more recent First Ladies, they didn't play a direct role in formulating policy, Troy points out. The Eisenhowers' strong marriage, for instance, helped Ike maintain high approval ratings throughout his two administrations. Jackie Kennedy, with her enormous popularity and glamour, self-consciously created a Kennedy myth that concealed the president's marital infidelities and other sordid truths for years. As the role of women changed in society in recent decades, so did that of the First Lady; Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford were activist First Ladies who became lightning rods for criticism of their husbands; the Carters and Reagans were "co-presidents," with the First Lady having a direct impact on important aspects of policy. The Clintons represent the culmination of this trend: Hillary Rodham Clinton was put in charge of a major policy initiative, and her activities became a principal headache for her husband. Her unpopularity demonstrated the popular confusion and discomfort over the First Lady's evolution from simply the president's wife to a political partner.

Full of surprising and fascinating anecdotes, this is an absorbing look at an often-overlooked aspect of the modern presidency.

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