A few years ago, authors and Time magazine editors Michael Duffy and Nancy Gibbs began looking into the idea of writing a book about The Presidents Club, an organization former presidents Herbert Hoover and Harry Truman jokingly formed at the presidential inauguration of Dwight Eisenhower in 1953.
Duffy and Gibbs appeared today at the National Archives to discuss their new book appropriately titled The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity.
"We tend to look at our presidents as individuals, but this idea of a club is something that binds them together," Duffy said.
"The club is much more real than even we thought," Gibbs added.
The interesting give-and-take presentation, accompanied by slides, was divided into 4 segments: power, rivalry, consolation, and protecting the office. The talk was interspersed with well-researched anecdotes and tales compiled by the authors.
When he was president, Harry Truman, despite objections from his party, reached out to former Republican President Herbert Hoover and asked him to help restore war-ravaged Europe. Hoover traveled to 22 countries as part of his mission. Based on that success, the pair decided a club might help incoming presidents and provide a way for former presidents to continue to be of service to their country.
"Fine," Truman reportedly said. "You (Hoover) be the president of the club. And I will be the secretary." Since then, every president has availed himself of both formal and informal help from club members.
For example, Lyndon Johnson turned to former president Eisenhower for counsel many times after he succeeded assassinated President John Kennedy. In fact, Johnson called Eisenhower "the best chief of staff I've got."
The club allows presidents to get to know one another better in informal ways. When then President Ronald Reagan dispatched former presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter on a foreign mission, Ford suggested that the trio just make it "Dick, Jimmy, and Jerry" while on the trip.
Although they were considered psychological and political polar opposites, Nixon and then-president Bill Clinton became "late night pen pals." In fact, Clinton says he re-reads a particularly powerful letter from Nixon every year.
Clinton, upon first meeting with Reagan, asked him how he could be a better president. Reagan warned Clinton that the pressures of the office would be immense and he would need to "go to (presidential retreat) Camp David" as often as he could. Reagan also said that he had noticed that Clinton didn't know how to salute properly. So after demonstrating the proper way, Reagan aided Clinton in practicing saluting until he thought his pupil had mastered it.
The questions incoming presidents ask their counterparts are often similar: How do you run an efficient office? How do you manage your day-to-day schedule? How do you live under the most powerful microscope in the world? How do make hard decisions? How do you avoid agonizing over even the simplest of choices?
And, while all ex-presidents make efforts to help each other, some bonds are greater than others. Obviously, the strongest tie in modern times has been the father-son relationship between the Bushes.
Of course, Duffy and Gibbs said, every club must have its "black sheep." And in the President's Club, that is Jimmy Carter. "Carter has really redefined the genre," Duffy said. "He has created a new position - that of being the ex-president of the United States. If you hand him a script, he pretty much ignores it."
Tales, Tidbits, and Tips
We are currently witnessing an effect of the Presidents Club. When Barack Obama was opposing Clinton's wife for the Democratic nomination 4 years ago, Obama and Clinton "fought like ferrets" Duffy said. Now, however, Clinton is becoming a cornerstone of Obama's re-election campaign.
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