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CHARACTER ABOVE ALL: Ten Presidents from FDR to George Bush

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Some of the best biographers/historians/speech writers put together one very well written book. My favorites were McCullough's Truman piece, Doris Kearns' FDR section, Ambrose's Ike selection, and the section on Carter. While most of the authors are a bit biased towards their president/topic, they write well and make many good points. The book is a fast read. Noonan's piece on Reagan, also incredibly well written, simply bipasses the Iran-contra scandal with but a mention of what Reagan tried to do for the Contras. That is all well and good but it is difficult to read something about a president's character and the biggest scandal of that president's administration is conveniently left out. That would be like discussing Nixon's character and never bringing up Watergate or mentioning Clinton and not the Lewinski scandal. Fact is, those events are integral parts of a president's tenure. Such is life; still incredibly fun to read.

"Character" is the focus of this book's biographical essays on the ten presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to George H.W. Bush. "In a president, character is everything," wrote Peggy Noonan in her essay on Ronald Reagan. "A president doesn't have to be brilliant; Harry Truman wasn't brilliant, and he helped save Western Europe from Stalin. He doesn't have to be clever; you can hire clever. White Houses are always full of quick-witted people with ready advice on how to flip a senator or implement a strategy. You can hire pragmatic, and you can buy and bring in policy wonks. But you can't buy courage and decency, and can't rent a strong moral sense. A president must bring these things with him."

Here are three anecdotes from the book that throw character into relief:

1912: West Point Cadet Third Class (sophomore) Dwight Eisenhower dressed down a plebe (freshman). "Eisenhower added sarcastically, 'You look like a barber.' The plebe's face went red. He replied softly, 'I was a barber, sir.' It was Eisenhower's turn to go red with embarrassment. Without a word, he returned to his room, where he told his roommate, 'I'm never going to crawl [haze] another plebe as long as I live.... I've just done something that was stupid and unforgivable. I managed to make a man ashamed of the work he did to earn a living.' Eisenhower never hazed again, and as an adult he never shamed a man." (Stephen Ambrose)

Sometime in the 1930's: "When the young Gregory Peck stood on the dock that day and saw [President Franklin] Roosevelt being carried off the boat like a child, he was so stunned that he started to cry. But then, Peck recalled, Roosevelt instantly put everyone at ease. As soon as he was placed in his chair, he put his hat on his head, placed his cigarette holder in his mouth, waved to the crowd and smiled his dazzling smile, and suddenly, Peck said, 'I started clapping and everything was fine. He seemed with every gesture to be saying, 'I'm not pitying myself, so why should you worry about me?"'" (Doris Kearns Goodwin)

1943: After the sinking of the PT-109, Lieutenant John Kennedy gathered the battered crew on the shore of a nearby island, making plans to signal their location. Another officer said, "'Boy, you kill me. We're beat, we're burned, we're given up for dead, we're living on green coconuts and no water. We're surrounded by fifteen thousand Japs and you think the odds are with us.' ... Kennedy says, 'it's a flaw in my character.' Well, it was in his character. Kennedy had an iron will." (Richard Reeves)

Editor Robert Wilson gathered the essays by ten presidential biographhers -- all men and women of letters, all with gifted prose styles. There's a fine mix of telling personal anecdote, responses to the great challenges, and large conclusions.

Writing something short and concise is always harder than writing something long, and these essays are compact gems. For instance, if you're unlikely to get through the 1120 pages of David McCullough's full biography of Harry S. Truman, his essay in this book delivers the high points in 21 pages.

"Character Above All" is an excellent starting point for the study of character and its effect on history -- and can well encourage more reading on the lives of great men.

-30-

As the title implies, this is a collection of biographcial essays on each of the 10 presidents from FDR to Bush 1 by 10 different authors who are either expert historians or knew the President while in office. The thing that ties them all together is that each essay is supposed to look at each man as president and find that one part of his character that made him the type of president he was. Each essay is about 30 pages and it makes for interesting reading.

A good sample would come from Doris Kearns Goodwin's look at Franklin Roosevelt. She asserts that the most valuable component of his personality was his self-confidence. I thought this quote from FDR makes the point wonderfully: "I'll tell you...at night when I lay my head on my pilow, and it is often pretty late, and I think of the things that have come before me during the day and the decisions that I have made, I say to myself - well, I have done the best that I could, and turn over and go to sleep."

The essays are wonderful - some inspiring, such as Gerald Ford's, some disturbing such as JFK's. However, all are well-written and this is a fantastic collection. I give this book an: "A+".

This is a composite book from ten different authors about ten different Presidents. Since these are all well known authors, the writers know their subjects and boil their personalities down in twenty to thirty pages. One cannot get more well known than David McCullough and Steven Ambrose. The writing is great and flows well.
If I have any problem, it is that some of the authors are more generous than others. Reeves makes Kennedy look pretty low on the morality issue and Noonan inflates Reagan a little too much. Of course, this is subjective writing, and since the authors know their subjects well, one can probably count on some bias. All in all a great read on some of our more recent Presidents, with the exception of Clinton and Bush II.

We all have a book or two that's a favorite; one you cherish a bit more than others. This book is that kind for me. Studying our country's presidents is a hobby of mine so I snatched this title up at the local bookstore a few years ago. Even today, I still read specific sections about any one of the Presidents from FDR to George Bush. This is the perfect book for your summer reading list. You'll get the insights into each President that never appears on the evening news. An excellent book!

You have 'Character Above All' listed under the writings of Robert Anton Wilson. I believe this is incorrect.