The Presidents Club
Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity
The first history of the private relationships among modern American presidents—their backroom deals, rescue missions, secret alliances, and enduring rivalries.
The Presidents Club, established at Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration by Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover, is a complicated place: its members are bound forever by the experience of the Oval Office and yet are eternal rivals for history’s favor. Among their secrets: How Jack Kennedy tried to blame Ike for the Bay of Pigs. How Ike quietly helped Reagan win his first race in 1966. How Richard Nixon conspired with Lyndon Johnson to get elected and then betrayed him. How Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter turned a deep enmity into an alliance. The letter from Nixon that Bill Clinton rereads every year. The unspoken pact between a father and son named Bush. And the roots of the rivalry between Clinton and Barack Obama.
Journalists and presidential historians Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy offer a new tool to understand the presidency by exploring the club as a hidden instrument of power that has changed the course of history.
The Presidents Club, established at Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration by Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover, is a complicated place: its members are bound forever by the experience of the Oval Office and yet are eternal rivals for history’s favor. Among their secrets: How Jack Kennedy tried to blame Ike for the Bay of Pigs. How Ike quietly helped Reagan win his first race in 1966. How Richard Nixon conspired with Lyndon Johnson to get elected and then betrayed him. How Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter turned a deep enmity into an alliance. The letter from Nixon that Bill Clinton rereads every year. The unspoken pact between a father and son named Bush. And the roots of the rivalry between Clinton and Barack Obama.
Journalists and presidential historians Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy offer a new tool to understand the presidency by exploring the club as a hidden instrument of power that has changed the course of history.
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- Simon & Schuster |
- 656 pages |
- ISBN 9781439127704 |
- April 2012
$32.50 List Price
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Praise
“This is essential reading for anyone interested in American politics. --Robert Dallek, bestselling author of An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917”
– 1963
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“This is essential reading for anyone interested in American politics. --Robert Dallek, bestselling author of An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917”– 1963
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“Forget Rome’s Curia, Yale’s Skull and Bones and the Bilderbergs--the world’s most exclusive club never numbers more than six. . . . Michael Duffy and Nancy Gibbs have penetrated thick walls of secrecy and decorum to give us the most intimate, revealing, and poignant account of the constitutional fifth wheel that is the ex-presidency. Readers are in for some major surprises, not to mention a history they won’t be able to put down. ”– Richard Norton Smith, author of Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation
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“The Presidents Club is magnetically readable, bursting with new information and behind-the-scenes details. It is also an important contribution to history, illuminating the event-making private relationships among our ex-Presidents and why we should do a far better job of drawing on their skills and experience.”– Michael Beschloss, bestselling author of The Conquerers
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“Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy have given us a great gift: a deeply reported, highly original, and wonderfully written exploration of a much-overlooked part of American history. The tiny world of U.S. presidents is our Olympus, and Gibbs and Duffy have chronicled the intimacies and rivalries of the gods. ”– Jon Meacham, bestselling author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
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“Michael Duffy and Nancy Gibbs have taken us inside one of the most powerful and unusual families in American life--the brotherhood of former presidents of the United States. Political junkies, historians, psychologists and main street citizens will find the tales of friendship, envy, conspiracy, competition and common cause irresistible.”– Tom Brokaw, bestselling author of The Greatest Generation
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“This is a brilliant idea for a book, wonderfully written! At Eisenhower’s inauguration, Hoover and Truman half-jokingly decided to form a ‘President’s Club.’ With surprising reporting and insights, this book reveals the relationships and rivalries among the few men who know what it’s like to be president. It gives a new angle on history by exploring the essence of the presidency. ”– Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Steve Jobs and Benjamin Franklin
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“Michael Duffy and Nancy Gibbs offer more than a fresh and fascinating first look at the world’s most exclusive men’s club. It’s a book of real substance about clashing egos and strange bedfellows at the top. ”– Jonathan Alter, bestselling author of The Promise
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“The Presidents Club is a lucid and well-written glimpse into the modern presidency and its self-sustaining shadow organization. It's worth reading and rereading for its behind-the-scenes insights. ”– USA Today
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“This is a great scoop . . . Amazing. ”– Chris Matthews, NBC
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“A fabulous book . . . I absolutely love it. ”– Greta Van Susteren, FOX News
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“This is . . . the historical version of crack. ”– Joe Scarborough, MSNBC
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“Fascinating! ”– Brooke Baldwin, CNN
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“It is a fascinating read, and I can’t put the book down. ”– Clayton Morris, FOX News
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“Can I download it at midnight tonight? . . . I love this book, I love that somebody tackled it. ”– Chuck Todd, MSNBC
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“This is a compelling look at how these men set aside their differences to shape policy and history. ”– Entertainment Weekly
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“A lively history of the crisscrossing personal relationships among America’s post-World War II presidents. ”– The Washington Post
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“With their knowledge of the territory of presidential politics and personality, Gibbs and Duffy assemble a compelling account . . . [and] show that collisions of ego, personality and politics can often result in creation, not destruction. ”– Kirkus Reviews (starred)
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“With research in presidential papers and the published record, this is a fascinating and fun read that will appeal to political junkies and history buffs alike. Highly recommended. ”– Library Journal
Read an Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
So you’ve come to talk about my predecessors.” Bill Clinton greets us in his Harlem office, looking thin, sounding thin, his voice a scrape of welcome at the end of a long day.
It is late, it is dark, pouring rain outside, so beyond the wall of windows the city is a splash of watery lights and street noise. But inside, past the two armed agents, behind the electronic locks, the sanctuary is warm wood and deep carpet, a collector’s vault. A painting of Churchill watches from the west wall; a stuffed Kermit the Frog rests on a shelf, while a hunk of an old voting machine, with names attached and... see more
Hear an Excerpt
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Book Reviews
Reading Group Guide
This reading group guide for The Presidents Club includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
Backroom deals, secret alliances, bitter rivalries—these are just a few of the facets of what is perhaps the most important fraternity in American History. Bound by experience and the singular weight of holding supreme office, this club of former and current presidents has, in one way or another, acted as a secret and impactful instrument on the course of American—and world—history. Time editors Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy put these complicated relationships, from Truman and Hoover’s truce at Eisenhower’s inauguration to Clinton and Obama’s touchy modern relationship, under the ultimate lens, revealing the ways in which presidents in office must rely, sometimes against their will, on those few men who have sat in the same seat.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1.List and discuss the most unlikely relationships in the Presidents Club. Who reached farthest across the aisle? Why are former and current presidents so likely to work together, even when their policies and personalities differ so d see more
Introduction
Backroom deals, secret alliances, bitter rivalries—these are just a few of the facets of what is perhaps the most important fraternity in American History. Bound by experience and the singular weight of holding supreme office, this club of former and current presidents has, in one way or another, acted as a secret and impactful instrument on the course of American—and world—history. Time editors Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy put these complicated relationships, from Truman and Hoover’s truce at Eisenhower’s inauguration to Clinton and Obama’s touchy modern relationship, under the ultimate lens, revealing the ways in which presidents in office must rely, sometimes against their will, on those few men who have sat in the same seat.
Topics & Questions for Discussion
1.List and discuss the most unlikely relationships in the Presidents Club. Who reached farthest across the aisle? Why are former and current presidents so likely to work together, even when their policies and personalities differ so d see more
Video
Secrets of THE PRESIDENTS CLUB
Secrets of the world's most exclusive fraternity are revealed. How current US Presidents have heavily relied on the advice of their predecessors when faced with America's toughest issues and decisions.
Secrets of THE PRESIDENTS CLUB
