From the Publisher
The modern presidency really begins on September 14, 1901, argues Stephen Graubard, with the assassination of William McKinley and the succession of Teddy Roosevelt. TR's vigorous presidency foretold the expansion of wartime authority under Wilson; the growth of federal government under FDR; and the national security issues that dominated much of the foreign policy concerns during the Cold War.In his provocative new account of the enormous shift of power to the office of the American presidency, Graubard draws upon his intimate knowledge of every president since FDR to reveal the dangerous transformation of the executive branch in the last hundred years. Graubard sees three different "presidencies" over the course of the century, marked by increasing accumulation of authority: the presidency created by TR, Wilson, and FDR, continued under Truman and Eisenhower, in which foreign policy issues played a far greater role in presidential politics; the period of America's time of troubles from Kennedy to Carter, in which the disastrous Vietnam War spurred a further tendency to secrecy; and the third presidency, defined by Reagan and marked by spin. Learning the lessons of Reagan and Clinton, George W. Bush has inherited a far more powerful office than the one originally envisioned by the Founding Fathers. With access to former members of both Republican and Democratic administrations, Graubard has written a masterful history of presidential power--one that anyone concerned with American politics will need to read.
Publishers Weekly
The 20th-century presidency can be defined by its growing accretion of power, argues Graubard, longtime Daedalus editor and Brown University historian emeritus. America's then controversial, presidentially led interventions in WWI and WWII required new extensions of the office's powers; the Cold War era of "permanent" Soviet threat and Vietnam-related secrecy amplified them; and Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, he says, added spin and deception to the mix. George W. Bush thus assumed an office whose powers are exponentially greater than anything envisioned by the Founding Fathers, subject to correspondingly limited checks and balances. The result, according to Graubard, is a White House increasingly sealed off from the public its occupant ostensibly serves. In acerbic, elegantly written critiques of successive administrations, he depicts presidencies that are increasingly responsive primarily to their particular internal dynamic. The chapter on Clinton (titled "The Rake's Progress") is a particularly effective analysis of a chief executive who "looked for new maps but never found them." George W. Bush is characterized as a poseur whose combination of hubris and ignorance may have done lasting damage to the U.S. at home and abroad. While readers may challenge his interpretations, Graubard's America, transformed by the "kings, courtiers, and warriors" of its 20th-century executive branch, merits wide and careful attention. Author tour. (Nov. 2) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Graubard (American history, emeritus, Brown Univ.), the longtime editor of Daedalus, has written a sweeping, critical account of the development of the modern presidency that is comparable to Arthur M. Schlesinger's The Imperial Presidency (1973). While Schlesinger examined the harmful effects of the expansion of presidential power from 1789, Graubard limits his study to a group of 18 presidents (from Teddy Roosevelt to George W. Bush) whom he defines as 20th-century presidents. He goes on to argue that the presidency of the 18th and 19th centuries was transformed by two factors: hot and cold wars and the weapons and intelligence necessary to fight them, as well as the expanded significance of foreign affairs. Each contributed to the growth of presidential power as the political and moral restraints that held the presidency in check eroded. As the demands of a highly complex, international arena intensified, the increasingly "ordinary men" who occupied the White House (the lone exception being FDR) lacked the vision, character, and/or expertise to meet the challenges to national security without engaging in questionable or morally ambiguous tactics that extended the powers of the presidency. Graubard's historical analysis is thorough and his concluding discussion of Tocquville and Bryce fascinating. This important work deserves a wide audience; recommended for all libraries.-Thomas J. Baldino, Wilkes Univ., Wilkes-Barre, PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Do presidents control the government, or does the government control presidents?In the old days, it was supposed, America's leaders were men of the people, representing the people, interested in the welfare of the people; as if by design, they were ipso facto morally superior to the crowned kings and queens of the old country (though, of course, Sydney Smith's query of 1820 still holds: "Under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a slave?"). But by the end of the 20th century, writes Graubard (History Emeritus/Brown Univ.; Mr. Bush's War, 1992, etc.), things had changed; for a century, America's rulers "were monarchs, admittedly of a new breed, increasingly attended by courtiers" and given to waging war constantly, all over the world, in order to maintain the Empire. It's a lively and promising conceit, but Graubard undermines it by starting off with the essentially decent Theodore Roosevelt, who showed admirable restraint while glowering and talking of big sticks: " . . . whatever his admiration for military and naval power," says Graubard, "they never led him into foreign wars." His thesis is worn away, too, by all the nagging questions the reader is likely to form along what is, after all, a very long way: Was H.R. Haldeman really more of a courtier than Alexander Hamilton? Was Jimmy Carter really as bad as all that? (Yes, Graubard answers, he really was. But Al Haig was even worse.) What's more terrible, getting caught in a lie or getting caught in a blunder? And so on. Still, Graubard's portraits of 20th-century presidents are useful in a college-survey sort of way, and they lead him to a quite wonderful fire-and-brimstone denunciation of the currentadministration, which is all about power, secrecy, and deception, staffed by "men and women, courtiers and mock warriors, [who] served a monarch whose authority rested on a contested election, who acted as if the nation had invested him with exceptional powers."Imperfect, then, but quite interesting: much like some of those very presidents.
What People Are Saying
Bill Moyers
You've kept us busy this week and given us a great deal of enjoyment with your nominations of the one book you would like the next president to read... Here, for what it's worth, is one more suggestion-- mine: Command of Office: How War, Secrecy and Deception Transformed the Presidency from Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush." the author is Stephen Graubard. As a much younger man he was invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to F.D.R.'s wartime inauguration in 1945. Ever since, he has watched the presidency evolve with greater and greater authority and less and less regard for the checks and balances that sustain democracy. The next occupant of the White House can't read this without weighing how much more war, secrecy, and taste for empire America can tolerate.
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