Dwight Eisenhower: unlike almost all recent presidents, he kept the US out of foreign wars
American Caesars by Nigel Hamilton (Bodley Head, £25)
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick (Picador, £20)
It is not new to conceive of American presidents as modern Caesars, but it is a brilliant idea to take Suetonius’s The Twelve Caesars—his collective portrait of the rulers of Rome from Julius Caesar to Titus and Domitian—and to make it the template for a 500-page collective portrait of the 12 emperors of America from Franklin D Roosevelt to George W Bush.
Suetonius inspires more than the theme: he also provides the form. Each of his portraits is divided into three parts: an account of how the Caesar rose to power; then his public life as emperor; and finally an account of his private life. Hamilton does the same. The effect is a compelling rhythm and a good sense of proportion. For the Romans, the often scandalous private detail was new and shocking. Today, when the private life of political leaders tends to overwhelm their public policy and deeds, in the media and biographies alike, it is a refreshing counter-revolution in biographical method.
Hamilton has already written biographies of John F Kennedy and Bill Clinton, legends in their own bedrooms, and he acknowledges the discipline this brings. “Every modern biographer is de rigueur a disciple of Freud, and must lace a modern understanding of the subject’s psychology into the gradual unravelling of the subject’s life story, from the start, to satisfy public expectation.” However, by following Suetonius and putting the public career first, it is possible to see each president “initially in the context of his historic imperial role, and then, by contrast, as a man with a private life story.”
Suetonius’s tripartite division, and the incisive tautness of each individual essay, also makes for effective contrasts. Hamilton aids the process with a pithy tag at the head of each chapter, alongside a reproduction of each presidential seal. FDR, Harry S Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and JFK are “later deified.” Lyndon B Johnson, Richard Nixon and George W Bush are “later reviled.” Gerald Ford is “respected,” Jimmy Carter “mocked but later respected,” Ronald Reagan “later deified—by conservatives.” This is probably too harsh on LBJ, who retains liberal respect for his “great society,” and far too kind to Carter, who in parallel with Reagan can at best be described as “later respected—by liberals.” George HW Bush and Clinton are not given tags, presumably because Hamilton thought it too soon to make definitive judgements. I would suggest “mocked yet respected” for the elder Bush, and “middling” for Clinton.
FDR is judged “the greatest Caesar of them all.” Mobilising the full resources of the US empire and his office as no president apart from Lincoln, he was the saviour of democratic capitalism in the 1930s. Hamilton believes “his political, strategic, industrial and diplomatic skill in guiding the US not only on the sidelines of the world war, but with a clearly articulated moral framework for the world that would come thereafter, was—and remains—perhaps the greatest example of presidential leadership in American history.”
Not the least of FDR’s legacies was his choice of successor. True to FDR’s vision, Truman reversed the conduct of post-first world war America in foreign affairs, weathering domestic and international storms which would have destroyed an emperor of lesser judgement and inner fortitude. There is a superbly evocative description of Truman flying 14,000 miles to meet Douglas MacArthur after the general’s victory at Inchon in the Korean war.
“Every fibre of his humble Missouri background cautioned him against hubris… There, like Julius Caesar attempting collegial relations with Pompey, the president tried to be civil and get to know, face to face, the notoriously vain, self-seeking general… The result was disaster.”
To my mind the best essays are on Eisenhower and Carter. Both radically changed my view of their conduct and impact. Far from being laid back and nonchalant, Eisenhower is portrayed with a brilliant and (in retrospect) almost faultless geostrategic instinct, directing his administration with force and clarity at almost every key juncture. Eisenhower put in place much of what we now consider the “west wing,” including the first strong chief of staff in Sherman Adams, regular press conferences and weekly national security council meetings.
It is a startling fact that General Eisenhower, almost alone of the 12 emperors, kept America out of foreign wars after his deft settlement in Korea. In putting a decisive halt to British-French-Israeli adventurism in the Suez crisis, he rejected the advice no only of his own secretary of state, but more tellingly of LBJ, then majority leader in the senate, who urged him to “tell them [the British and the French] they have our moral support and go on in.” “Go on in” is precisely what LBJ was to do in Vietnam 80 pages later, on a scale Hamilton is fairly sure that neither Eisenhower nor Kennedy would have done.
As for Carter, his west wing was chaos personified, and his good works since take on the hue of a penance for the underappreciated dark side of his foreign policy.
I had not realised the extent to which Carter’s own administration, with his personal assent, instigated the destabilisation of Afghanistan, arming and funding the mujahedin with the intention of provoking a Russian invasion which Carter then pretended to deplore while lying about US involvement. “The CIA operation was a wonderful idea,” his national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said, for “it succeeded in luring the Soviets into the Afghan trap.” And who, largely in consequence, is trapped there now, at huge cost in lives and treasure with no exit strategy?
By contrast to Hamilton’s essays, David Remnick’s biography of Barack Obama is verbose and shapeless, over-stuffed with insider gossip and incidents of little relevance to Obama’s story or achievement.
For Obama’s early life, Dreams from My Father hardly needs rewriting in the third person. On his election, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s Race of a Lifetime is a model of electric reportage in a different league to Remnick. As for his presidency, Remnick does not even attempt an assessment of the significant policy engagements of the first year—Iraq, Afghanistan, healthcare, the fiscal stimulus. We are instead treated to insights such as “in matters of décor, Obama altered the oval office only slightly.” Remnick recounts how he received a call from Eric Lesser, assistant to White House adviser David Axelrod, telling him that the president laughed at a cover of the New Yorker which showed Obama walking on water then falling in. “Could I send a framed copy signed by Barry Blitt to the president?” (Remnick is editor of the New Yorker, in case you were unaware.) “A couple of days later, Obama told some correspondents about his amusement; their meeting was off the record but it quickly leaked.”
So now we know that Obama’s historic tag is unlikely to be “superhuman, founded a new religion.” What makes him unusual is the extent to which he was deified before becoming emperor. He has that in common with Eisenhower, so let’s hope.
American Caesars by Nigel Hamilton (Bodley Head, £25)
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick (Picador, £20)
It is not new to conceive of American presidents as modern Caesars, but it is a brilliant idea to take Suetonius’s The Twelve Caesars—his collective portrait of the rulers of Rome from Julius Caesar to Titus and Domitian—and to make it the template for a 500-page collective portrait of the 12 emperors of America from Franklin D Roosevelt to George W Bush.
Suetonius inspires more than the theme: he also provides the form. Each of his portraits is divided into three parts: an account of how the Caesar rose to power; then his public life as emperor; and finally an account of his private life. Hamilton does the same. The effect is a compelling rhythm and a good sense of proportion. For the Romans, the often scandalous private detail was new and shocking. Today, when the private life of political leaders tends to overwhelm their public policy and deeds, in the media and biographies alike, it is a refreshing counter-revolution in biographical method.
Hamilton has already written biographies of John F Kennedy and Bill Clinton, legends in their own bedrooms, and he acknowledges the discipline this brings. “Every modern biographer is de rigueur a disciple of Freud, and must lace a modern understanding of the subject’s psychology into the gradual unravelling of the subject’s life story, from the start, to satisfy public expectation.” However, by following Suetonius and putting the public career first, it is possible to see each president “initially in the context of his historic imperial role, and then, by contrast, as a man with a private life story.”
Suetonius’s tripartite division, and the incisive tautness of each individual essay, also makes for effective contrasts. Hamilton aids the process with a pithy tag at the head of each chapter, alongside a reproduction of each presidential seal. FDR, Harry S Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and JFK are “later deified.” Lyndon B Johnson, Richard Nixon and George W Bush are “later reviled.” Gerald Ford is “respected,” Jimmy Carter “mocked but later respected,” Ronald Reagan “later deified—by conservatives.” This is probably too harsh on LBJ, who retains liberal respect for his “great society,” and far too kind to Carter, who in parallel with Reagan can at best be described as “later respected—by liberals.” George HW Bush and Clinton are not given tags, presumably because Hamilton thought it too soon to make definitive judgements. I would suggest “mocked yet respected” for the elder Bush, and “middling” for Clinton.
FDR is judged “the greatest Caesar of them all.” Mobilising the full resources of the US empire and his office as no president apart from Lincoln, he was the saviour of democratic capitalism in the 1930s. Hamilton believes “his political, strategic, industrial and diplomatic skill in guiding the US not only on the sidelines of the world war, but with a clearly articulated moral framework for the world that would come thereafter, was—and remains—perhaps the greatest example of presidential leadership in American history.”
Not the least of FDR’s legacies was his choice of successor. True to FDR’s vision, Truman reversed the conduct of post-first world war America in foreign affairs, weathering domestic and international storms which would have destroyed an emperor of lesser judgement and inner fortitude. There is a superbly evocative description of Truman flying 14,000 miles to meet Douglas MacArthur after the general’s victory at Inchon in the Korean war.
“Every fibre of his humble Missouri background cautioned him against hubris… There, like Julius Caesar attempting collegial relations with Pompey, the president tried to be civil and get to know, face to face, the notoriously vain, self-seeking general… The result was disaster.”
To my mind the best essays are on Eisenhower and Carter. Both radically changed my view of their conduct and impact. Far from being laid back and nonchalant, Eisenhower is portrayed with a brilliant and (in retrospect) almost faultless geostrategic instinct, directing his administration with force and clarity at almost every key juncture. Eisenhower put in place much of what we now consider the “west wing,” including the first strong chief of staff in Sherman Adams, regular press conferences and weekly national security council meetings.
It is a startling fact that General Eisenhower, almost alone of the 12 emperors, kept America out of foreign wars after his deft settlement in Korea. In putting a decisive halt to British-French-Israeli adventurism in the Suez crisis, he rejected the advice no only of his own secretary of state, but more tellingly of LBJ, then majority leader in the senate, who urged him to “tell them [the British and the French] they have our moral support and go on in.” “Go on in” is precisely what LBJ was to do in Vietnam 80 pages later, on a scale Hamilton is fairly sure that neither Eisenhower nor Kennedy would have done.
As for Carter, his west wing was chaos personified, and his good works since take on the hue of a penance for the underappreciated dark side of his foreign policy.
I had not realised the extent to which Carter’s own administration, with his personal assent, instigated the destabilisation of Afghanistan, arming and funding the mujahedin with the intention of provoking a Russian invasion which Carter then pretended to deplore while lying about US involvement. “The CIA operation was a wonderful idea,” his national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said, for “it succeeded in luring the Soviets into the Afghan trap.” And who, largely in consequence, is trapped there now, at huge cost in lives and treasure with no exit strategy?
By contrast to Hamilton’s essays, David Remnick’s biography of Barack Obama is verbose and shapeless, over-stuffed with insider gossip and incidents of little relevance to Obama’s story or achievement.
For Obama’s early life, Dreams from My Father hardly needs rewriting in the third person. On his election, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s Race of a Lifetime is a model of electric reportage in a different league to Remnick. As for his presidency, Remnick does not even attempt an assessment of the significant policy engagements of the first year—Iraq, Afghanistan, healthcare, the fiscal stimulus. We are instead treated to insights such as “in matters of décor, Obama altered the oval office only slightly.” Remnick recounts how he received a call from Eric Lesser, assistant to White House adviser David Axelrod, telling him that the president laughed at a cover of the New Yorker which showed Obama walking on water then falling in. “Could I send a framed copy signed by Barry Blitt to the president?” (Remnick is editor of the New Yorker, in case you were unaware.) “A couple of days later, Obama told some correspondents about his amusement; their meeting was off the record but it quickly leaked.”
So now we know that Obama’s historic tag is unlikely to be “superhuman, founded a new religion.” What makes him unusual is the extent to which he was deified before becoming emperor. He has that in common with Eisenhower, so let’s hope.
