THE PURSUIT OF LIMITS, PART 2

 

[A good friend of mine recently read my essay post entitled “Prudence, Humility, and the Pursuit of Limits.” Then he asked me if I could frame the theme in an essay with Democratic, rather than Republican, presidents. The following is my humble attempt to do so.] 

The highlight of summer 1960 was the Democratic National Convention meeting in Los Angeles. The primary aim of the convention was to nominate a winning presidential candidate. The party had been shaken by two straight losses by the intellectual Adlai Stevenson of Illinois (dubbed an “egghead” by his opponents) to General Eisenhower, often perceived as a lightweight. And this was coming after 16 years of dominance with the administrations of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. The year 1960 was needed to be one of victory for the party.

The two leading candidates for the Democratic nomination going into Los Angeles were two senators. That was about the one thing they shared in common. One senator was from the northeast, Harvard graduate, book author, old money rich, and handsome with a beautiful wife. The other was from the south, teachers college graduate, let others write books, corruption rich, and average looking with an attractive wife. Also, the first senator had little legislative accomplishment while the other was considered by many to be the greatest Senate Majority Leader in the history of that institution. They were, of course, John F. Kennedy (JFK) and Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ).

For a nine-year-old political junkie like me the convention was pure drama. After several votes, JFK finally prevailed and knowing he needed Texas to win the election, he sent his brother, campaign manager, and future Attorney General Robert (Bobby) Kennedy to ask LBJ to join the ticket. Despite the fact that LBJ hated Bobby (and did not think too highly of JFK) he accepted. Atter a close election which featured for the first-time presidential debates on television, JFK entered the White House and LBJ entered obscurity.

Inauguration Day- January 20, 1961- was sunny and very cold. JFK to show vigor did not wear a hat as many in the audience did. After poetry by Robert Frost and being sworn in as our new chief executive, JFK began his speech. It was inspiring. A new generation was taking over and the “new kids on the block” will be able to do whatever they wanted. The “ask not” part was the highlight as Americans would bear any sacrifice to advance our principles in a hostile world. A new era is now upon us. Alas, the cold day was prescient of the cold hard reality to come.

The target was the Bay of Pigs, a heretofore minor beachhead on the southwestern shore of Cuba. The plans were for a battalion-size armed group of Cuban exiles (the self-styled Brigade 2505) with air support to land and commence a revolt against the communist dictatorship of Fidel Castro. All this activity was under the auspices of the United States government, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) which had recruited, trained, and armed Brigade 2506. Planning began in the last months of the Eisenhower Administration and passed on to the JFK Administration without hardly any review.

April 1961 was to JFK what Spring 1975 was to President Ford and what August 2021 was to President Biden- embarrassing national military and intelligence failures. JFK denied air support for the landing thus dooming the operation. Those not killed outright or executed by firing squads (including several Americans) were imprisoned. The prisoners were freed in 1963 when they were ransomed by the United States for farm equipment and other supplies to the Cuban government. Camelot had met realpolitik. (JFK’s perceived weaknesses as a leader prompted the Soviet Union to have East Germany built the infamous Berlin Wall which lasted three decades.

Yet, if anything, JFK was a learner. He had the humility to know the difference between rhetoric and reality. So, when Cuba reemerged as an issue in October 1962 with the “Missiles of October” confrontation with Cuba and the Soviet Union, JFK had the experience and wisdom to question his military and intelligence experts to discern between perceptions and reality, and he clashed particularly with his Joint Chiefs of Staff who leaned more towards war rather than a peaceful solution to the crisis. In the end, war was prevented because JFK reckoned nuclear annihilation was not worth Cuba, but also that if he did not demonstrate strength with patience and prudence the United States could very well unwillingly have gotten a “nuclear winter” in 1962.

The thirteen-day crisis was soon over to the relief of everyone. Lessons were learned and then the unthinkable happened just thirteen months. The assassination of JFK on November 22, 1963 not only changed presidents but governing spirit and style emulating from the White House. LBJ was unleashed finally from the vice presidency that one of his predecessors had observed that “was not worth a bucket of warm spit.” LBJ was a man without limits and with endless hungers. He had gone from being the “Master of the Senate” to being ignored by JFK and his Ivy League circle. He especially hated Robert Kennedy (RFK), the late president’s brother and attorney general who had served as the “deputy president” with far more influence with JFK than himself. LBJ also idolized President Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal social programs.

Using the memory of his slain processor as motivation, LBJ launched his own legislative agenda which included civil rights, fair housing, education, and an end to poverty. He was going to outdo the New Deal with his vision of the Great Society. But another country- Vietnam- was going to have the last word. To his critics who lamented both a major war with half a million armed Americans in theater fighting communist guerillas and a major social transformation at home, LBJ hubrisly replied we could have both “Guns and Butter.” In the end, LBJ got neither.

In early 1968, North Vietnam launched major urban assaults in South Vietnam. Although the communists lost every battle, the television screens in American homes seemed to show otherwise. With US Marines fighting house-to-house in the city of Hue in the greatest urban combat in Asia since the Battle of Manila in 1945 between US and Japanese forces, Vietnam appeared to be a lost cause. An exhausted LBJ spoke to the nation on March 31 and told his fellow Americans that he would not seek a second full term as president.

And the Great Society went awry with the assassination of RFK in June, more anti-war protests throughout the spring and summer, and the “granddaddy” of all protests- the Chicago riot in August during the Democratic National Convention. The fabric of America was being ripped so the voters returned the White House to the Republicans. Several years after leaving the presidency, citizen LBJ was dead- his later years more of a Greek tragedy than “Hail to the Chief.”

After eight years featuring one of the most infamous political scandals in US history, a presidential resignation, and our only president never once being elected to national office, the voters returned the White House to a Democrat, the heretofore obscure former governor of Georgia- Jimmy Carter,

Carter was the first president elected from a southern state since the Civil War and the first culturally southerner elected since Woodrow Wilson. But Carter was different- he was not a racist, detested Jim Crow laws, and was a career naval officer before his father died and Carter resigned to enter the family business of peanut farming. He was also a faithful Evangelical Christian who vowed never to lie to the American people. Carter was perhaps the most honest, trustworthy, and the best role model to emulate as a politician since Abraham Lincoln, Unlike Lincoln, Carter did not succeed as president because he was too limited in what he could accomplish.

Carter’s presidency was wash in limits. First, the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC)- composed of Venezuela and Middle Eastern nations- created oil embargoes to the US and other western nations. As the price of a barrel of crude oil increases, so does a gallon of gasoline. Gasoline scarcity became an American fact of life as well as long lines of vehicles at gasoline stations. Second, the Carter Administration inherited high rates of inflation from the previous Republican administrations.

And with the attack on the US Embassy in Iran by Iranians protesting the American protection of the deposed Shah crippled Carter’s foreign policy agenda. Every evening for the remainder of his term in office major television networks highlighted the status of the nearly three dozen American hostages held in Tehran. Implored to do “something,” Carter eventually authorized a complex rescue operation which failed. Americans at home looked aghast at Iranian film showing dead US Delta Force commandos in the desert.

Frustrated by events overtaking him and limited at what he could do Carter in 1979 gave his in famous “malaise speech.” Although the word malaise the president set the tone of discontent among Americans but instead of pointing the finger at national leadership Carter seemingly blamed the people themselves for the persistent dissatisfaction in the country. In 1980, Carter faced a major challenge to his renomination for president by his party. Although he was nominated for a second party Carter lost in a landslide to the Republican candidate. And Carter left the White House to become the most effective former president in our history.

Bill Clinton in 1993 became our next Democratic president after 12 years of Republican rule. Having previously served as governor of Arkansas, Clinton had no real political agenda except for the economy, our economic indexes strived and grew throughout the eight years of his presidency. Possessing personal appeal and charisma, Clinton was able to work with a Republican-controlled Congress and especially with an equally charismatic Speaker of the House to create a balanced budget and welfare reform, among other legislation.

Nevertheless, Clinton’s magnetism had a dark side. Notorious in Arkansas as a womanizer, he brought his limitless appetite for women to the White House where he engaged in inappropriate activity with at least one college-aged intern. And both the President and the First Lady were accused of unlawful business activities in Arkansas. Mixing the two was disasterous for Clinton during his second term. He became only the second US president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. Although the Senate refused to remove him from office, he was hampered for the rest of his presidency.

After eight years of a Republican president, Barrack Obama was elected as our next chief executive. Charismatic with a compelling life story- born in Hawaii to a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya, parents divorce, lives for a time in Indonesia with mother and stepfather, moves back to Hawaii, mother dies, is raised by white grandparents through high school- Obama came to the White House with the US embroiled in two wars in the Middle East and is in the midst of one of the worst economic meltdowns in American history.

In his two first years, with Democrats controlling Congress, Obama is able stabilize the economy, begin planning to withdraw from one war, and get his signature piece of legislation- the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)- pass. In 2011, when Republicans gain control of Congress, he is less able to act. Finally, in frustration, he tells reporters that he has a phone and a pen. He was referring to executive orders, which give quick relief at the beginning but do not have staying power if future presidents do not like any action(s) addressed by an executive order.

This was the case in two of Obama’s signature foreign policy initiatives- the Paris Climate Accords and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (aka Iran nuclear deal). Constitutionally, both should have been ratified as treaties with at least two-thirds approval in the Senate. Knowing that they would not be approved in this matter, Obama went the executive order route. His immediate successor withdrew from both, although his successor re-entered the climate agreement.

Coda

We have had twelve presidents since 1961- six Democrats and six Republicans. Writing as an essayist and not as a historian, I have briefly described only six with the addition of a presidential candidate not elected to the White House in terms of prudence, humility, and limits. I will rate them in order:

1.     George H.W. Bush- “wouldn’t be prudent” should be in the mind of every powerful leader

2.     Ronald Reagan- despite rhetoric, was able to accomplish major goals

3.     Barrack Obama- major foreign policy initiatives were executive orders, not treaties

4.     Jimmy Carter- overwhelmed by limits

5.     Bill Clinton- overwhelmed by personal demons

6.     Lyndon Johnson- “Guns and Butter- too much, too expensive, too expansive

7.     Barry Goldwater- (we have no way to know how he would have governed as president so this is a guess) despite rhetoric, he would have pursued victory in Vietnam but would have governed more prudentially at home

Bonus

Considering presidents from April 1945 to now, I would rate Harry Truman as possibly number one. He entered office on the death of Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) and wanted to continue the legacy of FDR with the New Deal social programs but foreign policy had to dealt with as a priority  He ordered the atomic bombings of Japan to end World War II, he ordered the Berlin Airlift to keep West Berlin free from Soviet domination, he recognized Israel as an independent nation, he integrated the armed forces, he initiated the Marshall Plan to reconstruct Europe, he created the Truman Doctrine to protect Greece and Turkey from communist influence, he sent troops to South Korea to repel a communist invasion, he prohibited atomic bombings of China, and he fired General MacArthur from command. Truman accomplished all the above with prudence and humility and knowing his limits of avoiding war with the Soviet Union.