Big Blue Disk 53/bbd53.zip/PREZ.TEX

Text File | 1991-01-17 | 36KB | 623 lines

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                         Chester Alan Arthur (1881-1885)

      Chester A. Arthur became President after President James A. Garfield died
 from an assassin's bullet.  He was the fourth Vice-President to succeed to the
 presidency upon the death of the Chief Executive.

      In 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Arthur as the Collector
 of the Port of New York.  Arthur used his position to give government jobs
 to party workers, but in 1878 he was forced to resign when President
 Rutherford B. Hayes began to reform the civil service.

      At the Republican national convention of 1880, Arthur and his associates
 pushed for the nomination of Grant to a third term, but the convention
 nominated James A. Garfield instead.  In hopes of gaining support from Grant's
 followers, the convention nominated Arthur for Vice-President as a compromise.

      Arthur underwent a surprising character change after he became President.
 Although a product and a long practitioner of the spoils system, he signed the
 Pendleton Act of 1883, which created the merit-based modern civil service
 system.

      Although he sought election as President in his own right in 1884,
 Arthur's support for governmental reform alienated his former allies.
 At the same time, he failed to convince the Independents, or reformers,
 that he was a true reformer.  Thus, he was denied the Republican presidential
 nomination.

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               (Stephen) Grover Cleveland  (1885-1889, 1893-1897)


      Grover Cleveland was the only President to serve two separate terms, and
 the first Democrat in the White House after the Civil War.  Although he was an
 extremely hardworking politician and chief executive, he ultimately failed in
 his second term.  Often he seemed to have a torn personality.

      He was first a lawyer and then a politician, who began as an assistant
 district attorney and sheriff.  In the latter position, Cleveland presided at
 the execution of two prisoners, making him the only President who was once a
 hangman.  Although Andrew Jackson was his model President, he tended to accept
 the anti-Jacksonian ideal of the chief executive as primarily an administrator
 who left policy-making to Congress.  In the last two years of his presidency,
 he demonstrated a rigidity that led him to condemn rather than conciliate
 his opponents in Congress.

      The 1884 political campaign centered less on policy issues than on the
 personal morality of the candidates.  The Republican candidate was James G.
 Blaine from Maine who was accused of profiting from association with railroad
 interests while in Congress.  "Blaine! Blaine!  James G. Blaine!  Continental
 liar from the state of Maine!" became the Democratic battle cry.  On the other
 hand, Republicans brought out the story that Cleveland had fathered an
 illegitimate child, so that a popular counter-chant arose in the campaign,
 "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?  Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!"

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                          Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)

      President Harrison was the fifth and final Republican with a full beard
 and the fourth born in Ohio.  Harrison was the grandson of William Henry
 Harrison, the ninth President of the United States, who served the shortest
 time in the Oval Office.  Although he defeated Grover Cleveland in 1888,
 Harrison had fewer popular votes.

      Harrison did much to increase respect for the United States flag.  He
 ordered that it be flown above the White House and other government buildings.
 He also urged every school in the land to fly the flag.

      During the rapid industrialization of the 1880's many corporations formed
 trusts which controlled market prices and destroyed competition.  The Sherman
 Antitrust Act, passed in 1890, fulfilled one of Harrison's campaign promises
 by outlawing trusts or any other monopolies that hindered trade.

      In the election of 1892, Harrison lost to Grover Cleveland.

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                          William McKinley (1897-1901)

      President McKinley was the fifth and final Republican President of the
 nineteenth century from Ohio, as well as the last Civil War veteran to become
 President.  In 1896 he was elected President on a protective tariff and gold
 standard platform, and was re-elected in the 1900 campaign.  His Democratic
 opponent in both campaigns, William Jennings Bryan, was a more colorful
 character.  Whereas McKinley conducted a "Front Porch Campaign" and was known
 for his generally conciliatory nature, Bryan was the fiery champion of the
 farmers in the mid-West and the South.

      Although McKinley was reluctant to intervene in Cuba, Congress declared a
 state of war.  The Spanish-American War was the major event of the McKinley
 administration, apart from his own assassination.  On September 6, 1901 , Leon
 F. Czolgosz, an unemployed mill worker and an anarchist, fired two shots at
 point-blank range.  Czolgosz was the first presidential assassin to be
 electrocuted.

      Theodore Roosevelt, the President's former assistant Secretary of the
 Navy and second-term Vice President assumed the presidency.  He had once said
 in 1897 that "McKinley has no more backbone than a chocolate eclair."

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                     Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt (1901-1909)

      No President was as energetic and had as much personality as Theodore
 Roosevelt.  He became the nation's youngest President when William McKinley
 died.  Perhaps his most impressive accomplishment was his personal
 transformation from a sickly youth, who almost died, into a robust figure of
 physical health.  Although his doctor warned Roosevelt that his health was
 fragile and that he should lead a restrained life, he purposely chose to
 ignore the advice.

      He wrote more books than any other President.  Some of them remain
 classics; for example his first, the Naval War of 1812, published in 1886.
 In 1898 the Spanish-American War broke out.  Roosevelt immediately resigned
 as Assistant Secretary of the Navy so he could fight.  He organized the Rough
 Riders and led the charge up Kettle Hill, which flanked the Spanish blockhouse
 on San Juan Hill. It was an impressive episode that brought him national fame.

      After he became President, he demonstrated similar energy.  He thrived in
 office, and developed his "stewardship theory" of presidential power which
 held that a President may do anything as long as the Constitution does not
 explicitly prohibit it.  He was a progressive Republican who used the
 presidency as a "bully pulpit," fighting political corruption by big business,
 as well as creating the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and undertaking
 major conservation efforts.  His 1903 domestic program was called the "Square
 Deal."

      Roosevelt worked to make the United States a world leader backed by
 strong armed forces.  He expressed this foreign policy as "Speak softly and
 carry a big stick."  After helping to bring an end to the Russo-Japanese war
 in 1905, he became the first American to win the Nobel Peace Prize.  In 1903,
 the United States and Panama signed a treaty for the construction of a canal.
 Roosevelt said he was prouder of the Panama Canal than of any other
 accomplishment of his administration.

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                        William Howard Taft  (1909-1913)

      Theodore Roosevelt groomed William Howard Taft to be his successor.
 Unfortunately, Taft hated politics and loved the law; he preferred judicial
 life to the world of politics.  Yet the ever genial Taft gave in to pressures
 from his ambitious wife and Roosevelt.  He became the sixth Republican
 President from Ohio, having won over the third and last effort of William
 Jennings Bryan.

      In some ways, Taft's administration was even more progressive than
 Roosevelt's.  He dissolved the Standard Oil and tobacco trusts, started the
 Department of Labor, and drafted legislation for the income tax (16th
 Amendment) and the direct election of senators (17th amendment).  However, his
 tariff and conservation policies angered the progressives.

      Feeling that Taft had abandoned his policies, Teddy Roosevelt
 unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in 1912.  After Taft received
 the nomination, Roosevelt bolted from the Republican party and ran on the
 progressive "Bull Moose" ticket.  With the Republican vote split, Democrat
 Woodrow Wilson won while Taft finished in third place.

      Yet in one way Taft accomplished what he most wanted.  In 1910, after the
 position of Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court became vacant, Taft found
 the oldest qualified person to fill the vacancy, in the hope that he himself
 might one day replace the new person.  Taft's selection was Edward Douglass
 White, an associate justice on the Court since 1894.  His appointment as Chief
 Justice marked the first time in American history that an associate justice
 was elevated to Chief Justice.  When Chief Justice White died in 1921, Taft
 got his wish.  Warren G. Harding appointed the former President as White's
 replacement.

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                        Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)

      Woodrow Wilson had several careers and became frustrated in each of them.
 He first worked as a lawyer, but quickly lost interest in the law. After
 receiving his doctorate in political science--holding the distinction as our
 first Ph.D. President--he taught college for 25 years and served as the
 president of Princeton for 8 years.  After encountering administrative
 difficulties at Princeton, he opted to enter state politics in New Jersey.

      In 1912, the Democrats nominated Wilson for President with the support of
 William Jennings Bryan.  His platform was called the "New Freedom," dealing
 with reform of the federal government.  He won the election because the
 Republicans were split between William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt.  In
 1916, Wilson was re-elected by a narrow margin with the slogan "He Kept Us Out
 of War."

      Yet Wilson's attempts to mediate in the war failed.  After the United
 States entered World War I the Allies soon defeated the Germans.  Wilson's
 peace plan was based on his "Fourteen Points," which included his doctrine of
 self-determination in territorial disputes, as well as the League of Nations,
 the predecessor to the United Nations.  After refusing to consider any Senate
 reservation to the League, he went on a whirlwind tour to mobilize public
 support.  Unfortunately, he suffered a serious stroke in October, 1919,
 forcing his return to the White House.

      Although he was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize, the treaty was
 rejected by the U.S. Senate in 1920.  Wilson's unwillingness to compromise
 doomed the treaty and ended his enjoyment of politics.

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                       Warren Gamaliel Harding (1921-1923)

      Ohio outdid itself in the election of 1920.  Both the major party
 contenders were from that state.  Warren G. Harding defeated his Democratic
 opponent, James M. Cox, thus making Ohio the state with the most Presidents,
 as well as the two worst Presidents, according to expert polls--U.S. Grant and
 Warren G.  Harding.  Both these Presidents shared similar personality
 characteristics and remained favorites of the public while they were alive.
 Unfortunately, both were too dependent on their top advisers, some of whom
 turned out to be corrupt.  While Grant was a war hero, Harding was simply a
 dark horse who looked like a President.

      His administration stressed a return to "normalcy" after the active years
 of Woodrow Wilson.  Overwhelmed by the office, Harding preferred to play with
 his so-called "Poker-Cabinet," the name given to his cigar-smoking, hard-
 drinking, and poker-playing political advisers.  In between these diversions,
 Harding entertained mistresses, golfed and spent time "bloviating," his term
 for "shooting the breeze."

      Unfortunately, while Harding was bloviating with his cronies and
 mistresses, some of his advisers were involved in what became known as the
 Teapot Dome scandal.  Teapot Dome was a Navy oil reserve in Wyoming.  His
 Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, accepted large bribes for leasing the
 reserves to private interests.  As news of this scandal and other corruption
 in his administration became known, Harding suddenly died.  There's no
 evidence that he was personally involved in the corruption.

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                       (John) Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)

      Theodore Roosevelt's oldest daughter, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, perhaps
 best captured Calvin Coolidge's political personality in her remark that he
 looked like he had been weaned on a sour pickle.  The grim New Englander is
 also recalled for his nickname, "Silent Cal."  For example, his first and only
 response in 1927 to Republicans eager to renominate him was, "I do not choose
 to run for President in 1928."

      Perhaps his other most remembered one-liner was delivered in 1924 when
 he said, "The chief business of America is business."  He supported American
 business at home and abroad, favoring a program of what he called
 "constructive economy."  The government continued high tariffs on imports
 in an effort to help American manufacturers.

      Coolidge was a passive President.  The successor to Warren G. Harding, he
 slept more than any other President--reportedly 11 hours a day.  It's unclear
 if this was Coolidge's natural disposition or whether it was a response to the
 death of one of his two sons after his first year in the White House.

      At Coolidge's retirement from the Oval Office, he looked older than his
 57 years.  He lived only four more years.  When humorist Dorothy Parker was
 informed of his death, her riposte was, "How could they tell?"

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                        Herbert Clark Hoover (1929-1933)

      It is somewhat unfair that Herbert Hoover is best known for the Great
 Depression.  He surely had less luck as President compared to the popularity
 Calvin Coolidge (whom Hoover served under as Vice President) enjoyed while in
 the Oval Office.  Yet, Hoover was much more gifted than his predecessor.  In
 fact, Hoover's careers before and after the presidency are quite remarkable.

      Before the Oval Office he served a distinguished career as the American
 administrator responsible for directing the relief program to the defeated
 nations of World War I.  He subsequently served as the secretary of commerce
 from 1921 to 1928.

      The 1928 Republican campaign slogan, "A Chicken in Every Pot" put him in
 the White House.  Ironically, the catch phrase was first used by his Democratic
 opponent from New York, Al Smith, the first Roman Catholic to be nominated for
 President by a major party.

      After the 1929 stock market crash, the economy collapsed.  During the
 depression, Hoover opposed federal aid to the unemployed.  In 1932, he
 authorized the use of armed force to defeat the so-called Bonus Army--hastily
 removing the demonstrating crowds of WW I veterans from Washington, D.C.

      Hoover served the longest retirement of any American President--from
 1933 to 1964.  During that time, President Harry Truman made him the chairman
 of the influential "Hoover Commission" (1947- 1949) that reorganized the
 executive branch of government.  About 70% of the Commission's recommendations
 were adopted by the Congress.

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                      Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945)

      Franklin Roosevelt served longer in the presidency than any other
 President.  He was elected four times.  As a result, the Congress passed the
 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which limits chief executives to two
 terms.  Yet, while in office, he was able to establish--in many ways--the
 modern "institutionalized" presidency.  The position now has grown so large
 that it is a bureaucracy.

      Roosevelt expanded the presidency partly to overcome the Depression and
 in response to World War II.  In both cases, FDR's personality was a key
 element in persuading the Congress and the public to support him.  He asked
 for emergency powers, fashioned and proclaimed the New Deal, and implemented
 numerous administrative changes.  Even though huge deficits resulted, he used
 public funds for relief and public works.  These activist steps restored hope
 to the public.  His use of "fireside chats," (the first time a President
 became so publicly intimate) on the radio maintained public support.  Yet,
 when he sought to "pack the Supreme Court" with additional justices after it
 had nullified some New Deal legislation, the public and the Congress blocked
 him.

      His foreign policy initiatives were as energetic during World War II as
 his domestic policies to combat the Great Depression.  He launched a lend-
 lease program to help the Allies, and eventually promoted steps to establish
 the United Nations.

      The great Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., remarked
 after meeting FDR that the President-elect had "a second class intellect, but
 a first class temperament." Roosevelt's upbeat personality was reflected in
 how he dealt with the polio that he caught in 1921.  During the 12 years and
 39 days of his presidency, he could not walk a step without the aid of braces
 and crutches.  His presidency was greatly assisted through the equally
 energetic activities of the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.

      Despite the fact that FDR made some large blunders in office--for
 example, the court-packing plan and the "relocation" of Japanese American
 citizens during the war--the Franklin Roosevelt presidency is typically
 ranked as one of the two or three greatest in American history.

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                           Harry S Truman (1945-1953)

      Upon Franklin Roosevelt's death Harry Truman became President.  He was
 mercurial, the White House staff called him Billie Spunk.  Although FDR had
 kept his fourth Vice President ill-informed, Truman quickly showed the common
 sense and energy in office that he had displayed throughout his life.  He
 displayed his most famous motto on his desk in the Oval Office:  "The Buck
 Stops Here."  His political philosophy was "If you can't stand the heat, stay
 out of the kitchen."  As a result, he probably had the most successful
 presidency following a great President, even if his popularity declined while
 in office.

      He authorized the first use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
 on August 6 and 9, 1945 in order to end World War II.  Although not expected
 to win election in 1948, Truman's "Give 'em Hell Harry" campaign that
 condemned the passive Congress (he dubbed it the "Do Nothing 80th Congress)
 won public support.  As a result, he was able to take a number of bold steps
 during his presidency.  He created NATO, the Marshall Plan, and the Truman
 Doctrine, which aided nations threatened by communist takeover, such as Greece
 and Turkey.  He also broke the Soviet blockade of West Berlin with a massive
 airlift in 1948-1949.

      After North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, Truman obtained UN support
 for a "police action" to stop communist aggression.  He sent military forces
 under General Douglas MacArthur.  Later, when MacArthur opposed the
 administration's policy of limited military objectives and thereby violated
 the American tradition of civilian supremacy (civilian control of the
 military), the former army captain from World War I fired the five-star hero
 from World War II.

      Truman was also responsible for implementing a number of New Deal
 domestic initiatives into his own Fair Deal.  He raised the minimum wage and
 increased social security, as well as obtaining aid-for-housing laws.  He also
 integrated the armed forces through an executive order.

      Although his popularity decreased sharply the longer he was President,
 Truman's approval rate has risen dramatically in the years since he left
 office.  In time, the public has come to recognize and respect his common
 sense, honesty and energy.

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                       Dwight David Eisenhower (1953-1961)

      In sharp contrast to Truman, Eisenhower was a major hero before he
 assumed the presidency.  He was the supreme Allied commander in Europe who led
 the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944.  Best remembered for his modesty and
 ability to get along with others, both Democrats and Republicans sought him as
 a presidential candidate.  He resigned from the army and was nominated for
 President by the Republicans in 1952.  "I Like Ike" was the most famous slogan
 of the campaign.

      He was a moderate Republican with internationalist leanings.  Two of his
 major achievements in office were signing into law the Interstate highway
 system in 1956, which became one of the largest public works projects in
 history; and the St. Lawrence Seaway, which provided for joint construction
 with Canada of the 1959 opening of the Great Lakes to ocean-going vessels.

      Although he called it the biggest mistake of his presidency, the
 appointment of Earl Warren to Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953
 led to some of the major domestic reforms of the 1950s and the 1960s.  In
 1955 Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to assure the
 implementation of the 1954 Supreme Court's desegregation decision (Brown v.
 Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas).  Still, he has been criticized for not
 using his popularity to lead the civil rights movement in the United States,
 as well as his failure to openly confront Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy
 of Wisconsin during McCarthy's witch-hunt for communists in the United
 States.

      Eisenhower was the last President to serve two full terms until the
 Reagan administration in 1980.  His moderate behavior and balanced budgets
 were viewed more favorably after the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon
 presidencies.  Eisenhower's best remembered speech is perhaps his farewell
 address to the nation in which he warned in 1961 about the dangers of a
 "military-industrial complex" exerting undue influence on public policy.

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                       John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1961-1963)

      In contrast to the Eisenhower administration, John F.  Kennedy brought a
 certain amount of youthfulness and idealism to American politics that caught
 on with large segments of the public.  The theme of the Kennedy presidency was
 "The New Frontier."  He was the first President born in the 20th century, and
 his wife, Jacqueline, was the 1st First Lady born in the 20th century.
 Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic elected to the Oval Office, as well as
 the youngest elected President.

      His inexperience in foreign policy was reflected in the major setback and
 the major triumph of his administration.  Both episodes involved Cuba.  The
 Bay of Pigs disaster was a planned invasion of Cuba by anti-Castro Cubans
 trained and directed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.  It failed
 miserably in April 1961.  Kennedy accepted the blame for its failure.

      The Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 proved to be Kennedy's best
 global diplomatic accomplishment.  He forced the Soviet Union to dismantle the
 missile bases in Cuba by means of a naval quarantine of arms shipments to the
 island.  Rather than take rash action during the crisis, he relied on a group
 of advisers to debate the best course of action.  Shortly before the crisis,
 he had read Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August which showed how European
 leaders blundered into World War I.  He was determined to avoid a similar
 course in the first nuclear crisis between the superpowers.

      Kennedy's idealism was best reflected in the establishment of the Peace
 Corps in March 1961.  It is an agency which enlists volunteers to teach and
 provide technical manpower to under-developed countries.  Unfortunately, the
 promise of this administration proved short-lived.  The youthful President was
 assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald.
 Camelot came to an end.

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                       Lyndon Baines Johnson (1963-1969)

      After the assassination of John Kennedy, neither Attorney General Bobby
 Kennedy nor the Deputy Attorney General could determine where the oath of
 office was kept, delaying the swearing in of the Vice President.  Eventually
 they learned that the oath of office is in the U.S. Constitution, and Lyndon
 Johnson was duly administered the oath, becoming the 36th President of the
 United States.

      During his activist presidency LBJ tried to accomplish more than FDR.
 The domestic theme of the Johnson presidency was "the Great Society."  He
 worked hard for welfare, civil rights and "War on Poverty" legislation.

      Unfortunately, Johnson's downfall was his Vietnam policy which eventually
 overshadowed his domestic accomplishments.  Unable to unite the nation or even
 his own party over his handling of the war, Johnson stepped down after
 completing the term of office he had been elected to in 1964.

      Johnson's success and failure in the presidency stemmed from his previous
 political experience and a domineering personality.  From 1953 to 1960 he had
 served as Senate Majority leader where he was able to control his colleagues
 through a variety of Machiavellian means.  Unfortunately, he applied a similar
 leadership in the Oval Office, which managed to eliminate opposing viewpoints
 in Vietnam policy making.  Although a catch phrase of his was from the prophet
 Isaiah, "Come now, let us reason together," Johnson too often disregarded the
 wisdom of this message by ignoring the opinions of his opposition.

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                        Richard Milhous Nixon (1969-1974)

      As experienced politicians, both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon failed
 to live up to public expectations.  Unlike our great Presidents, the 36th and
 37th Presidents were primarily interested in exercising power as an end in
 itself.  In a fundamental sense, neither enjoyed the give-and-take of
 democratic politics with its emphasis on the importance of dialogue and
 compromise.

      As his first book, Six Crises (1962), suggests, Nixon saw political life
 as a series of personal challenges to confront rather than to enjoy.  In law
 school, although he was third highest ranked in his class, fellow students
 nicknamed him Gloomy Gus.  During his career in Congress from 1946 to 1952, he
 earned the nickname, Tricky Dick.  Nonetheless, he was elected Vice President
 in the Eisenhower landslides of 1952 and 1956.  After his narrow defeat by
 John Kennedy in 1960, he returned to California and was defeated in the
 governor's race in 1962.  Nixon's famous words after this defeat were,
 "Gentlemen, this is my last news conference . . . .  You'll not have Dick
 Nixon to kick around anymore," proved to be short-lived.  He won the
 presidency in 1968 and was re-elected in 1972.

      Most of his achievements in the presidency occurred in foreign policy.
 In 1972 he became the first President to visit the People's Republic of China
 and the Soviet Union.  He secured a detente (easing of tensions) with both of
 those countries and a cease-fire agreement in Vietnam that allowed the
 withdrawal of U.S. troops.

      By emphasizing law and order themes, Nixon became a champion of the
 middle class (which he termed the "Silent Majority").  However, Nixon's second
 term was cut short after the public realized that he had directed the cover-up
 of the Watergate scandal.  On August 9, 1974 he became the first President to
 resign from office.

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                        Gerald Rudolph Ford (1974-1977)

      When Richard Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974, Gerald Ford became
 President--the first to serve without being chosen in a national election.
 Prior to this time, he had spent most of his professional life as a member of
 Congress.  From 1948 to 1973 Ford was a representative from Michigan; from
 1965 to 1973 he served as the House minority leader.  As a legislator, he was
 respected and well-liked by his colleagues.  After Richard Nixon's first vice
 President, Spiro T. Agnew, resigned, Gerald Ford became the first vice
 President appointed under the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

      In contrast to Nixon's Machiavellian nature, Ford was magnanimous.  His
 nickname was Mr. Nice Guy, reflected in his solid mid-western background and
 the fact that he became the first Eagle Scout to occupy the Oval Office.  To
 remove the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam conflict from the national
 agenda, two of his first acts were to issue a full pardon to Richard Nixon and
 a conditional amnesty to Vietnam-era draft resisters.  The pardon drew a
 firestorm of criticism and veterans organizations denounced the amnesty as too
 lenient.

      His physical coordination--or apparent lack of it--received as much
 criticism as his clemency.  Both critics in the media and comedians made
 Ford's occasional stumbles into major episodes suggesting his inherent
 clumsiness.  Ironically, Ford was probably the most athletic President in
 American history.  He was an outstanding high school athlete and became an
 All-American guard on the University of Michigan football team in 1934.  As
 President, he enjoyed swimming, skiing, playing golf and tennis.

      Ford barely lost the 1976 election.  He received 48% of the vote compared
 to 50% for his Democratic opponent, Jimmy Carter.

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                   James (Jimmy) Earl Carter, Jr. (1977-1981)

      In some respects, Jimmy Carter's post-presidential career has earned him
 higher marks than his term in the White House.  As a former President, he has
 continued to work on public problems that concerned him while he was
 President.  Unlike a number of former politicians, he has not used his former
 office to increase his personal wealth.

      The public has never fully understood Carter.  New Deal Liberals were
 bewildered by his fiscal conservatism.  He was the first President from the
 Deep South since before the Civil War, and the first President from Georgia.
 His Bible Belt background both helped and hindered him.  This outsider moral
 image was a refreshing change after the Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon
 years, and it propelled Carter from virtual anonymity into the White House.
 Yet, once in office, the public grew tired of a preaching style which many
 felt left problems unsolved.

        Carter is credited for putting human rights at the forefront of
 American foreign policy.  His integral role in the peace negotiations between
 Israel and Egypt stands as one of his major successes.

      Yet, he was also viewed as weak in handling foreign policy, especially
 after his failure to obtain the release of the hostages held in Iran.  This
 unresolved crisis was compounded by a domestic economy with high inflation.
 He was further criticized for trying to get Congress to do too much, with
 mixed results, and for a management style that tended to focus on minute
 aspects of problems without successfully motivating the public to follow him.

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                        Ronald Wilson Reagan (1981-1988)

      Ronald Reagan was the first movie actor and the oldest man ever elected
 President.  He served in the 80s while he was in his 70s.  Although many
 thought he was too old to win election, he proved his critics wrong and then
 went on to become the first two-term President in 20 years.  He even survived
 an assassination attempt by John Hinckley.  Indeed, whereas some thought that
 the previous five Presidents had led to an inevitably weak presidency, Reagan
 demonstrated that the potential of the "bully pulpit" remains.

      Reagan used his acting skills to accomplish his goals in office and
 confound his critics.  He soon earned such nicknames as "the Great
 Communicator" and "the Teflon President."  Congress enacted his economic
 program which included the largest budget and tax cuts in U.S. history.  In
 1983 he sent a task force to lead the invasion of Grenada, and joined three
 European nations in maintaining a peacekeeping force in Beirut, Lebanon.

      Although Reagan is the first President since polls have existed to leave
 the presidency with higher approval ratings than when entering office, he was
 unable to control the high budget deficits which grew larger than during all
 the previous presidencies combined.  His over reliance on top assistants led
 to the Iran-Contra affair in which the U.S. sold weapons to Iran in exchange
 for the release of U.S. hostages held in Lebanon.  Some of the money was
 diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras.

      The subsequent uncovering of the scandals in the Housing and Urban
 Affairs department, and the Savings and Loan fiasco may undermine public
 regard for his administration.

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                   George Herbert Walker Bush (since 1988)

      After a primary competition within the Republican party, and after he had
 been accused of being a "wimp" by the national media,  Vice President George
 Bush gained the Republican nomination in 1988.  Stressing the Reagan era's
 peace and prosperity, Bush repeatedly insisted "Read my lips:  no new taxes."
 Yet, after the savings and loan industry bailout reached crisis proportions,
 Bush was forced to retract his opposition to a tax increase.

      Although a conservative to moderate Republican, Bush continued to
 surprise most critics who viewed him as a passive politician.  His order to
 invade Panama and topple Manuel Noriega boosted his already high poll ratings
 to above that of any other post-World War II President at a comparable point
 in their term.

      In August of 1990, Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, conquered the
 tiny oil-rich country of Kuwait.  Bush forged a global alliance which placed
 economic sanctions on Iraq. In addition, Operation Desert Shield, a massive
 deployment of military troops into the Persian Gulf region was ordered.


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