The Ex Files

Second Acts
Presidential Lives and Legacies
After the White House
by Mark K. Updegrove
Lyons, 368 pp., $24.95

Shortly after Dwight Eisenhower left the White House in 1961, I got a call from Bryce Harlow, the go-between on all matters Republican in Washington. Ike was planning a pleasant retirement, he said, that did not include many of the little chores necessary to remain useful in politics, such as answering unwanted letters and sending congratulatory messages. The Republican National Committee wondered whether I would take on these duties. So for the next two years there was a steady stream of boxes put on Trailways buses in Gettysburg, dumped on my desk on K Street, returned to Gettysburg for posting and occasional correction.

The point of the story is that the general, as he then wished us to call him, was following the path of most former presidents. He was an elderly gentleman not interested in any longer actively influencing public policy. He believed that we elect one president at a time and he would support the present president if asked and if he could.

Mark K. Updegrove believes that this is importantly changing. He may be right. The current crop of ex-presidents seems to be living longer and staying healthier. But I need more evidence that they are also becoming more influential.

There have been 34 "former presidents." In terms of post-presidency influence, the case is obvious for John Quincy Adams, who had a distinguished career in the House of Representatives; Theodore Roosevelt, who divided the Republican party in 1912; William Howard Taft, who became chief justice of the United States; and Jimmy Carter, to be discussed later. (Andrew Johnson was elected to the Senate, but this didn't amount to much.)

Updegrove's book consists of an introduction and short chapters--23 to 31 pages each--on the post-presidencies of Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, padded with summaries of their presidencies and even pre-presidencies. The author, an ex-publisher of Newsweek, adds to the usual secondhand accounts by interviewing several staffers and George H.W. Bush, Carter, and Ford, although the ex-presidents didn't tell him anything we don't already know except that Bush "implied" he's not as close to Vice President Cheney as he once was. The author's style is serviceable and his tone is upbeat. He seems to like everyone, with the possible exception of Nancy Reagan while she was first lady.

When LBJ left the White House, reports Updegrove, he told aides that his objectives were to write his memoirs, do a series of TV interviews with Walter Cronkite, build his presidential library and a school of public affairs at the University of Texas, assist Mrs. Johnson with her memoirs, if needed, and "get his estate and various business interests in order." This was a standard ex-president's list, and all of Updegrove's subjects managed to get their libraries, publish their memoirs (except Bush), and receive just compensation for the activities they chose to undertake.

How much ex-presidents accomplish beyond this level of achievement depends on how high one sets the bar. Those to whom the nation has given so much are expected to be "good citizens," and the Truman-to-Clinton group has certainly devoted much time and effort to many worthy causes. Most notable, of course, has been the Bush-Clinton relief team. But I would contend that, so far, only one of the nine has had a public policy impact that exceeds the celebrity that automatically comes with having once been president of the United States.

Why Jimmy Carter, universally characterized as a failed president, has become a phenomenon as a post-president is, to me, the most fascinating question that could be asked of "second acts." Unfortunately, it is not directly addressed by Updegrove.

Look for part of the answer in a little book by the Princeton political scientist Fred Greenstein, The Presidential Difference, in which he distills the qualities a president needs to succeed. Then compare Greenstein to Updegrove. One sees attributes necessary to be a good president that are irrelevant to being a good ex-president. A president needs "organizational capacity." But what does an ex-president organize? Or liabilities become assets. Of Carter's lack of "political skill" when in the White House, Greenstein writes, "Rather than viewing compromise as the essence of politics, he seems to have perceived it as a readiness to do what one knows is wrong." Labeling Right and Wrong, however, is a major feature of Carter's post-presidency success. And even Carter's "cognitive style" as president, faulted by Greenstein, helps to make him the most successful author among ex-presidents since Ulysses S. Grant.

But what ultimately explains the Carter phenomenon is his drumbeat of opposition to the policies of his successors, starting with lobbying heads of state to oppose President George H.W. Bush on Kuwait in 1991, through opposing President Bill Clinton on North Korea and upstaging him on Haiti in 1994, to challenging President George W. Bush on Cuba and Iraq. The Nobel Prize was given to Carter in 2002 "as a criticism of the line that the current (U.S.) administration has taken," according to the Nobel committee chairman. A unique influence of Jimmy Carter is that his status as a former president of the United States makes European and American intellectuals feel good about their anti-Americanism.

Stephen Hess, Distinguished Research Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, is the author, most recently, of Through Their Eyes: Foreign Correspondents in the United States.