Extolling the Presidents: Charles Gibson Reviews 'Character Above All'

By Charles Gibson | Wednesday, May 15, 1996

Robert A. Wilson's Character Above All is a compilation of ten essays that attempt to relate the notion of character to the presidential leadership of the last ten presidents, excluding Mr. Clinton. Wilson has drawn upon the resources and researches of political columnists, biographers, and speech writers, to assemble what he calls his 'act of defiance.' While the individual essays, written by ten different authors, are for the most part excellent treatments of the subjects' characters, the piece-meal structure of the book makes the work resemble those sound bites that Wilson wants to defy.

The contributors, on the whole, provide clear, thorough examinations of the relationship between character and leadership for their respective Presidents. Most notable of these is Pulitzer Prize-winning David McCullough's essay on Harry Truman. McCullough presents Truman as an ordinary American, an outsider to established Washington circles, whose greatest strength was his knowledge of himself. He was well aware of his limitations and eschewed pretention. He sensed that he was only one of a long line of leaders past and future and realized that his duty, not his personal popularity, was paramount. At the same time, he recognized his strengths, particularly the courage that allowed him to follow his principles when making difficult and sometimes unpopular decisions, such as the firing of General MacArthur. Although his writing shows his respect for Truman, McCullough does not fall into the trap of blindly praising an imperfect man. He acknowledges his intemperance, frequent oversimplicity, and often misplaced loyalty.

Peggy Noonan's essay on Ronald Reagan is lucid and comes directly to her point: 'In a president, character is everything.' Noonan carefully builds a picture of Reagan's character, focussing on his courage, which she maintains is the man's fundamental, driving quality. Specifically, she describes his courage to go against the fashionable political tide of the Great Society and to formulate his own vision of America.

To this courage Noonan adds Reagan's kindness and disdain for 'intellectual vanity.' Noonan does recognize Reagan's flaws, foremost of which is his detachment from those around him. This impersonality could cause disorientation among his political advisers and in his family, making him difficult to work with at times. Both McCullough's and Noonan's portrayals are balanced and thorough. The prose is clean and the use of anecdotes is appropriate and clarifying.

Other contributors, however, lack McCullough and Noonan's skills in rendering balanced prose. Two in particular appear to have mistaken their assignment: they seem to have written advertisements for, not examinations of, their respective Presidents. Doris Kearns Goodwin, writing about Franklin Roosevelt, is entirely too laudatory in tone. FDR did exude an inspiring confidence and determination that certainly was critical during one of the nation's most difficult periods. Kearns, however, tends to paint him as the country's single-handed savior.

Hendrik Hertzberg, a speech writer for Jimmy Carter writing on his former boss, suffers from a similar affliction. He starts off by calling Carter a 'saint,' developing the concept with a full description of his moral leadership and undying humility. Granted, Carter has devoted himself, particularly in his post-presidential years, to the service of others; Hertzberg's bias is nevertheless unwarranted.

Wilson's format, with each contributor writing about one president, is easy to read and requires little in the way of attention span — but it produces a work with poor cohesion and, ultimately, less impact than it could have. It is ultimately detrimental to the process of intellectual investigation, of examining specific cases and synthesizing conclusions based on one's findings. The reader is left with a collection of anecdotes and conclusions applicable to one President; Wilson never takes the time to take the investigation to the next level of more broadly applicable theories about the nature of Presidential character. This lack of synthesis is ultimately a disservice to the individual contributors, because it makes the work fall short of its potential, preventing it from being a truly serious piece of political scholarship.

Extolling the Presidents: Charles Gibson Reviews 'Character Above All'

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