<B>What they’re doing now</B> Curious about what life is like for the "fraternity" of former U.S. presidents, ex-<I>Chicago Tribune</i> columnist Bob Greene set out to spend a few hours talking privately with Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. In each case, save one, he is successful; just as he was about to interview Reagan, the announcement came that the ex-president was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and would be unavailable to talk. Greene is deferential toward his subjects in <B>Fraternity: A Journey in Search of Five Presidents</B>; he never asks the tough questions about the life-and-death actions these men took. Still, it is revealing to hear Nixon talk approvingly of how even his closest friends address him as "Mr. President"; to witness Carter sitting in the "green room" at a small Atlanta radio station, patiently waiting his turn to go on; to accompany the elder Bush and his son, Jeb, to a question-and-answer session for an audience of CEOs in Chicago; and to listen to Ford explain why he gave up drinking in support of his addicted wife. This is a warm, quotation-rich book, but it is not an education in the dynamics of politics. <I>Edward Morris reviews from Nashville.</I>

<B>Other people’s money</B> Peter G. Peterson, who served as secretary of commerce under President Nixon and is the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, states his position clearly in the subtitle to his new book <B>Running On Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It</B>. Peterson’s message is simple: the federal government is spending and promising to spend trillions of dollars more than it is taking in, a practice that is saddling coming generations with debts they cannot possibly pay. Politicians spend so extravagantly because it wins them votes without forcing them to deal with long-term consequences. "During the Vietnam War," Petersen observes, "conservatives relentlessly pilloried Lyndon Johnson for his fiscal irresponsibility. He only wanted guns and butter. Today, so-called conservatives are outpandering LBJ. They must have it all: guns, butter, <I>and</I> tax cuts. . . . [T]he tax cuts pushed by both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush did not, as promised, pay for themselves, but led to an explosion of government debt." We can do a U-turn on this road to ruin, Peterson says, by such common-sense and relatively painless approaches as indexing Social Security payments to rises in prices rather than wages, mandating personal savings accounts for retirement and bringing more candor and clarity to the way the government budgets its money.

<I>Edward Morris reviews from Nashville.</I>

Lying has become such a staple of foreign and domestic policy that politicians and the press have come to accept it without serious reservation. So contends The Nation columnist Eric Alterman in When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its Consequences. The consequences, he says, have been catastrophic, both in terms of lives lost and cynicism engendered. He begins his recitation of official duplicity with Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Yalta Conference of early 1945. Still needing Russia’s help, Roosevelt made concessions to Soviet premier Joseph Stalin that he would soon deny while unjustly depicting the Russians as treaty-breakers. This, Alterman argues, set the stage for the Cold War and sowed the seeds of the anticommunist hysteria. Harry Truman, Roosevelt’s successor, continued to make Yalta a synonym for Russian betrayal, thus hardening the division and making cooperation between the two superpowers politically unthinkable.

As Alterman presents it, President John F. Kennedy lied about the accommodations he made with Russia to get their missiles out of Cuba and in so doing made confrontation seem the only viable and honorable tool for dealing with adversaries. Lyndon Johnson lied to Congress and the electorate about the Gulf of Tonkin “provocations” that gave him an excuse to widen the war in Vietnam, a decision that would ultimately cost more than 58,000 American lives. Ronald Reagan lied about America’s illegal support of the murderous right-wing forces in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and George W. Bush lied about the necessity of invading Iraq. In supporting these accusations, Alterman relies heavily on original source material such as notes taken at strategy meetings and transcripts from the White House taping system. Finally, he maintains that the press has grown so uncritical of official lies that it acknowledges them if at all only after they have done their damage.

Edward Morris reviews from Nashville.

<B>All the presidents’ spin: leaders’ lives defined by power of stories</B> Storytelling is one of the primary ways by which we learn about the world and how we relate to it. In American presidential politics, storytelling of different kinds plays a role. Events, issues and ideology are important factors, too, but according to Evan Cornog, "Presidential life stories are the most important tools of persuasion in American political life." <B>The Power and the Story: How the Crafted Presidential Narrative Has Determined Political Success from George Washington to George W. Bush</B> is Cornog’s insightful exploration of the story behind the stories.

The book reads like a series of carefully researched reflections on many candidates, mostly the winners. Cornog considers, for example, the role of a candidate’s family and the best way for a candidate to convey his story (perhaps a biography if you were Franklin Pierce and a former college classmate of Nathaniel Hawthorne or Rutherford B. Hayes with William Dean Howells at your disposal). Cornog also looks at how a new or re-elected president can define himself with an inaugural address: "Some use it as an opportunity to reaffirm their life stories; others to change them." Cornog shows how certain candidates have life stories that more easily lend themselves to narratives that connect with the public. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Kennedy fit into this category. For others and that includes most presidential contenders it has been a struggle to find appropriate stories that would appeal to the public. These are not arbitrary choices, he writes; they "must fit the politician’s experiences and match his personality" while also satisfying the requirements of the era. The author tells us how in 1898, Theodore Roosevelt purposely sought combat against Spain in Cuba as a way to advance his political career. Addressing the businessman as candidate, Cornog shows that although "business failure is not necessarily an obstacle to political success, so a good record in business is no guarantee of a fortunate political career." Cornog, associate dean for policy and planning at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, discusses how journalists and historians make judgments on presidents and their reputations in a chapter entitled "Good and Evil," and looks at how former presidents give their versions of their administrations, and perhaps assume new worthwhile roles, in "Memoirs and Second Acts." Cornog’s thoughtful book will help anyone interested in politics to think about what is behind each presidential candidate’s story during this election year. He demonstrates, for example, the crucial role the press plays in the process. Each run for the presidency, he writes, "is a great festival of narration," with the press serving "simultaneously as actor, chorus, and audience." Beyond that, stories are interpreted by the press, then reinterpreted by campaign spin doctors, and the press sometimes responds to the public’s desire for new narratives.

Cornog notes that this year’s race, "like all the presidential elections that have come before it, will be defined by the power of stories." While he recognizes these stories are "an important part of the nation’s strength," he also says, "citizens will be less easily misled by stories if they are aware of the ways stories are marshaled to serve political ends." <I>Roger Bishop is a bookseller in Nashville and a frequent contributor to BookPage.</I>

Ever hear of Newton D. Baker? Unless you’re a close student of early 20th century history, probably not. In fact, the now-obscure Baker had a decent chance of being elected president of the United States in 1932. But the Age of Baker never emerged. Instead, Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected, at least in part because a few men at the Democratic presidential nominating convention in Chicago that pivotal year couldn’t let go of old grudges. Party conventions really mattered in those days, and the party barons chose the man they hated least. Happy Days Are Here Again, finished by Chicago Sun-Times political columnist Steve Neal shortly before his recent death, gives us an entertaining portrait of that epoch of late-night horse-trading in hotel corridors.

In case you’re still wondering, Baker was Woodrow Wilson’s war secretary, and he was the Adlai Stevenson of his day, the candidate favored by party intellectuals who thought FDR was a charming dimwit. Although Roosevelt went into the convention as the favorite, he faced heavy competition from the likes of party icon Al Smith of New York, House Speaker John Nance Garner of Texas, William McAdoo of California, and a bevy of distinguished Favorite Sons.

Neal lays out the scene for us with lively profiles of the candidates and would-be powerbrokers, among them future presidential father Joseph P. Kennedy, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, and the ever-colorful Louisiana “Kingfish,” Huey P. Long. They all played a role in Roosevelt’s selection, in some cases to their future regret.

The profiles build effectively to the convention crescendo. We all know the outcome: Roosevelt was nominated, and he changed the civic landscape for 50 years. Political junkies, American history buffs and anyone who likes an amusing story will have a good time learning how we got to where we are now. Anne Bartlett is a journalist who lives in South Florida.

The days at issue here are those immediately following the resignation and departure from the White House of Richard Nixon on Aug. 9, 1974, to succeeding president Gerald Ford’s controversial pardoning of him on Sept. 8. These were turbulent times, as Barry Werth points out in 31 Days, not simply because of the continuing Watergate scandal, but also because of a faltering national economy, rising oil prices, a potentially explosive clash between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, and the international and domestic fallout from the war in Vietnam.

Stepping into this morass was an undistinguished former congressman from Michigan whose fate it was to be struck twice by political lightning first, being elevated to the vice presidency after Spiro Agnew was forced to resign; then, ascending to the presidency when Nixon himself was toppled. During the transition, Ford had to cope with many Nixon holdovers, including the supremely ambitious Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig. Moreover, there was the lingering problem of what to do with his unrepentant predecessor.

Given such turmoil and the power vacuum it created, it was only natural that political opportunists would move in. Werth subtitles his book: The Crisis That Gave Us The Government We Have Today. At that time, George H.

W. Bush was chairman of the Republican National Committee and eager to become Ford’s vice president (a post that ultimately went to Nelson Rockefeller); Donald Rumsfeld, who also aspired to the vice presidency, was ambassador to NATO; Richard Cheney was his deputy, later to be Ford’s chief of staff; Richard Perle was an aide to hawkish Democratic senator Henry Scoop Jackson; and Ronald Reagan was still governor of California. All these figures were considerably to the right of the congenitally moderate and accommodating Ford.

Initially, Ford’s openness and congeniality won over both the country and a Congress that was overjoyed to be rid of the tainted Nixon. But when Ford announced against the advice of many of his counselors that he was pardoning his predecessor, the honeymoon was over and the stage was set for his defeat three years hence by the upstart Jimmy Carter. Edward Morris reviews from Nashville.

If you followed the Iran-Contra scandal in the late 1980s and early ’90s, you might remember diplomat Charles Hill as the man who took the notes. That was Hill’s brief moment in the public spotlight, and it was an inglorious one. Hill, the executive assistant to Secretary of State George Shultz, was publicly scolded for withholding evidence by not turning over all the notes he took during meetings at which Shultz discussed aspects of the Iran arms sale scheme. Throughout his diplomatic career, from Vietnam to the Middle East to the United Nations, Hill was always the man who took the notes, as he sat at the elbow of the great men he served: Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He was one of the faceless bureaucrats who really run the world, but seldom end up in front of the cameras.

Hill has reinvented himself as a professor at Yale University, a legendary figure to international relations students. One such student, Molly Worthen, was so impressed that she decided to become Hill’s biographer. With his cooperation, she has produced The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost, a penetrating chronicle of the man and his times. As biographer, Worthen deftly describes the impact that Hill had on U.S. foreign policy by touching the rudder, while interweaving the wrenching story of the collapse of his first marriage to a woman who turned to alcohol as she and her husband failed to connect. As memoirist, Worthen shows us how her pursuit of Hill’s history helped lead to her own maturation as a woman and a biographer, still sympathetic to her subject, but more clear-eyed and skeptical than she started out. She concludes that the professor whom so many of today’s students see as a paragon of ethical judgment did, whatever his rationalizations, withhold evidence from federal investigators. Hill has strongly denied that charge, and would doubtless object to some other judgments Worthen makes about his life. But he can’t argue with Worthen’s skill, psychological insight and compassion.

In Master of the Senate, the third volume of his magisterial study of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro continues to probe the personal and political sides of a complex man who, during the 1950s, put on a show so riveting that Capitol Hill had never seen anything like it during the previous century and a half of the Republic’s existence. Detailing his subject’s fierce ambition to be somebody in particular the president of the United States Caro offers a fascinating look at this respected and feared leader.

As Senate majority leader, Johnson skillfully maneuvered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to enactment, the first civil rights legislation Congress had passed in 82 years. Johnson, who throughout his career had always opposed civil rights bills, seemed an unlikely politician to accomplish what many principled reformers had tried and failed to do for decades. But Caro demonstrates that he was the only person who could have achieved this legislative goal. Under Johnson’s leadership, key decisions were made in negotiations away from the Senate floor. A principle that determined whether legislation would be passed or defeated during this period was whether or not it would further Johnson’s personal career. Compassion was sometimes on a parallel track with ambition, but if there was a conflict, ambition won.

A man who abhorred debate and dissent, Johnson drove himself, his wife and his staff relentlessly. He demanded absolute loyalty from those he worked closely with, particularly other senators. But there was another side to Johnson, a leader who, according to Caro, was the greatest champion that black Americans and Mexican-Americans and indeed all Americans of color had in the White House, the greatest champion they had in the halls of government during the 20th century. Along with Johnson’s personal story, Caro gives us a mini-history of the Senate that helps to put LBJ’s remarkable career in context. Caro, who spends years researching and writing his books, has added another authoritative, insightful narrative to his admirable series. Roger Bishop is a regular contributor to BookPage.

In December of 2000, Chief Justice Rehnquist sided with a majority of U.S. Supreme Court judges in awarding Florida’s electoral votes and thus the American presidency to George W. Bush. Rather than focus on that still-contentious decision, Rehnquist examines here a parallel incident: the disputed presidential election of 1876. In this fray, Democrat Samuel Tilden, who won the popular vote (just as Al Gore would in 2000), ultimately lost the presidency to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. The contest was finally decided strictly along party lines by an Electoral Commission made up of five Democratic members of the House of Representatives, five Republican senators and five Supreme Court justices. Florida’s electoral votes were at issue in 1876, too, as were those of Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon. Since the Electoral Commission’s ruminations were fairly brief and not intrinsically dramatic, Rehnquist embellishes his account with brief biographies of the principal players, frequent historical asides and an explanation of how the Supreme Court of that time differed from today’s court. But the meat, of course, is his assessment of the arguments made by Hayes’ and Tilden’s proponents. Between the lines, he appears to be justifying his own vote.

“In the Hayes-Tilden dispute, [the] concept of state sovereignty played an important role,” Rehnquist observes. “The Republican position was that the Constitution left the choice of electors to the states, and that with rare exceptions Congress could not . . . examine the correctness of the vote count certified by state officials.” Sound familiar? Tilden was philosophical if not gracious in defeat: “Everybody knows that, after the recent election, the men who were elected by the people as President and Vice President were counted out,” he said, “and the men who were not elected were counted in and seated. If my voice could reach throughout our country . . . I would say: Be of good cheer. The Republic will live.”

Humor in political discourse is a more potent weapon than spite. Mark Katz, who held the unusual position of presidential joke writer in the Clinton administration, proves this point decisively and with great fun in Clinton and Me: A Real Life Political Comedy. Katz begins his story in early 1995, when he tried to convince an unamused President Clinton to use an egg timer as the centerpiece of his speech before a group of Washington insiders known as the Alfalfa Club. The egg timer would serve as a comic device, allowing the president to make fun of himself for delivering an overly long State of the Union address. Clinton rejected the idea and went on to give a speech filled with spiteful, personal invectives; the evening was judged a disaster for the president.

Katz started his political life as a diehard Democrat who grew up in a household in love with the Kennedys. The book chronicles his journey from college prankster at Cornell to his work on the 1988 Michael Dukakis campaign, where he met George Stephanopoulos. Trying to make the humorless Dukakis funny proved too difficult. As the author puts it, “writing jokes for Dukakis was like being the staff photographer for The Wall Street Journal.” Katz needed a better client, and he got one with the election of Bill Clinton and the emergence of Katz’s friend Stephanopoulos as a star in White House.

With engaging style, the book describes the hurried process of writing a presidential speech. We learn that the Democratic joke writer’s principal rival is Al Franken, who is frequently enlisted to contribute presidential one-liners. Katz’s goal is to supplant Franken and avoid having Franken get credit for his work an outcome he didn’t always achieve. While the author is clearly a partisan Democrat, his book offers laughs for those on both sides of the aisle. The Democratic reader will like the jokes directed at Republicans, and Republicans should enjoy the irreverent attitude Katz uses to describe Democrats, including his former boss. In an era of vindictive politics, this book also reminds us that one of our most effective presidents, Abraham Lincoln, was also one of the funniest a worthy role model for today’s crop of candidates.