Professor Arthur Schlesinger Sr taught history at Harvard for three decades. His areas of specialty were urban history and social history. Schlesinger is perhaps best remembered today as the pioneer of the genre of appraising American presidents. In 1948, he polled 55 eminent historians in a survey to rank presidential greatness. The experts were invited to evaluate presidents of the past, and place them in categories ranging from Great to Failure. The then president of the US, Harry Truman, was not covered by the survey. The findings of the survey represented the consensus of an elite group of academics as to presidential performances and ratings.
The six presidents in the category of Great were in descending order: Lincoln, Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Wilson, Jefferson and Jackson. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Cleveland, John Adams and Polk were rated Near Great. Eleven presidents, including John Quincy Adams, Monroe, Madison and Hoover, comprised the Average group. Presidents Pierce, Buchanan, Coolidge and three others were deemed Below Average, while Harding and Grant were in the lowest class of Failure.
In 1962, Professor Schlesinger repeated the exercise. He chaired a group of 75 scholars to rank former presidents. The pecking order of the seven highest-rated presidents remained unchanged from the earlier survey. Of these, Lincoln, Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Wilson and Jefferson retained their places in the category of Great. President Jackson was moved down to the Near Great category in the company of Theodore Roosevelt, Polk, Truman, John Adams and Cleveland. There were twelve presidents, including Madison, John Quincy Adams, Monroe, Hoover and Eisenhower, in the Average class. Six, including Coolidge, Pierce and Buchanan, were considered Below Average. Presidents Harding and Grant were the two Failures. The then incumbent, President Kennedy, who was not included in the survey, wondered aloud with some asperity as to how anyone who had not experienced the pressures of the presidency could presume to judge those who had occupied the office. Not everyone would concur with such a perspective.
Arthur Schlesinger Jr, like his father, was professor of History at Harvard. During 1961-63, he served as special assistant to the president; his book on the Kennedy presidency won him his second Pulitzer Prize. In 1996, he polled 32 scholars and experts in the same exercise as his father’s. The results were not radically different. Lincoln, Washington and Franklin Roosevelt were rated great. In the Near Great class by Jefferson, Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, Truman and Polk followed them. Seven presidents, including Eisenhower, John Adams, Kennedy, Cleveland and LBJ, were above average. Twelve, including John Quincy Adams, Clinton, GHW Bush, Reagan, Carter and Ford were considered average. Four, including Coolidge and Tyler, were below average. The failures included Harding, Buchanan, Nixon, Hoover, Grant and two others.
The rating or ranking of past US presidents has, since the 1960’s, become something of a feature with American scholars of presidential history and politics. In 1991, Professor Tim Blessing, eminent scholar of the American presidency, polled 500 experts in a survey to rate presidents of the past. This was the first such exercise to include Ronald Reagan, whose second term ended in January 1989. The findings of the poll were presented at a meeting of the Organisation of American Historians in April 1991. Four presidents, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Washington and Jefferson, were rated great. The Near Great category consisted of Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, Jackson, and Truman. Presidents John Adams, LBJ, Eisenhower, Polk, Kennedy, John Quincy Adams, Cleveland and two others were rated Above Average. Hoover, Hayes, Ford, Carter and five others were considered Average. Reagan, Tyler, Coolidge, Pierce and two others constituted the Below Average group. The five failures were Andrew Johnson, Buchanan, Nixon, Grant and Harding.
In a study sponsored by the Federalist Society and the Wall Street Journal in the year 2000, a balanced group of 78 scholars were surveyed to rank presidents of the past. Presidents Washington, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt were rated great. The Near Great category comprised Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Jackson, Truman, Reagan, Eisenhower, Polk and Wilson. The Above Average group included Cleveland, LBJ, Kennedy and four others. JQ Adams, GHW Bush, Clinton and five others were rated average. Ford, Carter, Grant, Nixon and five others were considered Below Average. The failures were Harding, Buchanan and two others.
In 2010, 47 British scholars were invited to rate American presidents of the past. This was the first ever UK academic poll of American presidents. Certain broad criteria were applied for the exercise. These included vision, domestic leadership, foreign policy, moral leadership and historical impact or significance. The ten highest-rated presidents were in descending order: Franklin Roosevelt, Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, Truman, Reagan, Jackson and Eisenhower. The five at the bottom of the list were in descending order: A Johnson, Tyler, Harding, Pierce and Buchanan.
Surveys of presidential performance, conducted at different times over decades, show more consistency than variation. This is especially so of those at the higher and lower echelons of ratings. Variations in respect of some presidents may be attributed to two reasons. Experts polled at different times differ in their political leanings, and this may affect the process of appraisal. Secondly, over time more information, including declassified documents, becomes progressively available to scholars, and this adds to the perspective of historical events and personalities.
As experts gain perspective, the rating and reputation of a president may rise and also fall. For example, Eisenhower, who left office in 1961, was rated Average in the Schlesinger poll of 1962. In subsequent surveys conducted at much later dates, however, he has been placed in the Above Average or Near Great category. Ike’s was a “hidden-hand or passive style” of leadership; archival material suggests that he was a strong and decisive leader behind the scenes.
The attribute of greatness is essentially a value judgment, and not easy to define with any precision. Greatness is not synonymous with goodness, but the two are not mutually exclusive either. Among other things, greatness relates to accomplishments, ideas and the quality of moral and political leadership. Great men, as Adlai Stevenson once put it, are those who “have influenced the implacable forces of time.” A great leader is identified with policies, principles and institutional arrangements that serve to define his era.
Three presidents, Lincoln, Washington and Franklin Roosevelt, have been persistently rated Great, and are clearly in a class by themselves. Following them, not in any particular order, mostly in the categories of Near Great or High Average, are Presidents Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson, Jackson, Polk, Truman and also Cleveland. Eisenhower and Reagan, among post World War II presidents, have received High Average or Near Great ratings in recent polls, while Kennedy and LBJ have been rated above average.
President James Knox Polk has been described as the “least known consequential president.” He was an unabashed expansionist. During his single term of office, 1845-49, there was considerable expansion of American territory at the expense of Mexico. President Nixon’s foreign policy achievements were not inconsiderable. He opened up to China, and moved to end the Vietnam War, although only after he had expanded and intensified the conflict. He is also the only president to have resigned from office to avoid impeachment by the House, and almost certain conviction in the Senate. In some ways Nixon was a divisive figure. The following comments about him are suggestive as to how he was perceived by a good many people who, to be sure, differed from him politically, like former president Harry Truman: “I don’t think the son-of-a-bitch knows the difference between telling the truth and lying.”
Professor Richard Neustadt, scholar of the US presidency and founder of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard: “The great division in retrospective appraisal of Nixon will be between those who regard his as the most inept of presidential performances, and those who will regard it as the most vicious.”
Norman Cousins, world peace advocate, author and journalist: “President Nixon’s motto was if two wrongs don’t make a right, try three.”
President Carter has received only modest ratings, Average and Below Average, in successive surveys. And yet, his image is one of great decency, goodwill and moral conviction. Carter placed human rights high on the international agenda, and wanted to make government “competent and compassionate.” His policies, it has been said, were rooted in moral values; foreign policy, he felt, should reflect the highest moral principles. He was the architect of the Panama Canal Treaties, which restored sovereignty over the Canal Zone to Panama, and facilitated the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel. The Camp David Accords led to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979 and the Nobel Peace Prize for Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin. Carter assumed office at a time of international stagnation and inflation, and, during his single term of office, had to contend with major challenges and crises – the 1979 energy crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran hostage crisis. In the 1980 elections, he lost to Ronald Reagan.
Elections can be a “no-holds barred” contest, and there have been allegations that “dirty tricks” were used to boost Reagan’s electoral prospects. Ahead of a crucial television debate between the two candidates in the last week of October, Reagan’s campaign staff, somehow or other, obtained copies of Carter’s briefing books. The Republican candidate was briefed accordingly, and, armed, as he was, with inside information, enjoyed an unfair advantage in the debate. Another, and more serious, allegation relates to the Iran hostage crisis, and is known as the October Surprise Conspiracy theory. On October 22, 1979, President Carter, not without misgivings, had allowed the ailing former Shah of Iran to enter the US for medical treatment.
Only days later, a militant student group stormed and occupied the American Embassy in Tehran. They demanded, among other things, that the former Shah be returned to Iran to stand trial. 66 Americans employed at the Embassy were taken hostage. Earnest efforts – at the bilateral and multilateral planes – to resolve the matter promptly and peaceably made no headway. Special envoys, sent to Tehran by President Carter on November 7, returned empty-handed, and even a UN Security Council resolution on December 4, asking for the release of the hostages, was to no avail. On November 17, 13 hostages, 8 African-Americans and 5 women, were released, and another hostage, who was ill, was freed on July 11, 1980. The remaining 52 continued to be held in captivity.
The prolonged hostage issue was humiliating for the US, and damaging to President Carter’s image and leadership. An unsuccessful military operation to rescue the hostages in April 1980 compounded matters. In September 1980, only weeks from the American presidential elections, Carter was trailing his Republican challenger in opinion polls. By that time, however, some developments on the international scene had made for a situation that was more conducive to the resolution of the hostage problem. In July 1980, the former Shah passed away, and on September 22, Iraq invaded Iran. Release of the hostages ahead of the elections would clearly be a major boost for Carter. There have been allegations – by among others former Iranian president Bani-Sadr and former US National Security Council member and Middle-East specialist, Gary Sick – that important figures in the Reagan campaign clandestinely met representatives of Iran in European capitals to delay the release of the hostages until after the American elections. The Iranians were told that such a delay would virtually ensure Reagan’s victory in the elections, and, once in office, a Reagan administration would provide much-needed arms to Iran. Israel would be the conduit for the covert arms transfer. Iranian financial assets, frozen in US banks, would also be unblocked. The allegations have never been conclusively proved. Coincidentally, or otherwise, the hostages were released within minutes of Reagan’s assumption of office on January 20, 1981. And secondly, the Iran-Contra affair, which is not dissimilar in substance to the “hostage conspiracy theory,” became public in November 1986. Senior officials of the Reagan administration had orchestrated the sale of American arms to Iran, covertly and illegally, via Israel. The funds generated were used to support the Contras in Nicaragua, in violation of a ban by Congress. There was another aspect to this affair; Iran would use its influence to secure the release of 7 American hostages being held by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Several officials were indicted on different counts; eventually all were pardoned.
Carter’s modest ratings as president notwithstanding, many would concur that he is perhaps the greatest former president the US has had. He has travelled widely – to far-flung places like Bosnia, Ethiopia, Sudan and North Korea – to promote peace, to conduct peace negotiations, to observe elections, and also to advance disease prevention and eradication in developing countries. In 2002 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”
Ronald Reagan’s ratings have been the most variable of all presidents, ranging from “below average” to “near great.” He had a simple, almost simplistic, view of the world, and a few core beliefs. He believed in a laissez-faire philosophy, small government, supply-side economic policies, less taxes, and reduction in government spending. The then Soviet Union was, for him, “an evil empire.” Reagan’s admirers – and they are legion – take pride in his legacy; victory in the Cold War – due in large measure to his policies and leadership – and a prosperous economy. His critics contend that the prosperity of the Reagan years was built upon “unsustainable borrowing,” and resulted in huge deficits, that his policies favoured the rich and widened the gap in wealth. It is generally agreed, though, that Reagan was an enormously influential president, who restored American pride and morale. He may well be the most overrated and also, at the same time, underrated of all presidents. His brand of unquenchable optimism is perhaps something that an electorate likes in leaders.
When the first American Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, assumed office in 1790 he had a total staff of 6 people. Today his successor in office many times removed has over 15,000 people spread across the world working under him. In 1981 Professor David Porter of William Penn College, Oskaloosa, Iowa, polled 50 diplomatic historians to assess former American Secretaries of State, from Jefferson to Muskie. Some criteria were suggested for the survey; the incumbent’s success in defining and achieving diplomatic goals, his political and moral leadership exerted on foreign affairs, and the impact of his policies and actions on the course of American history. The 10 best Secretaries, according to the results of the survey, were in descending order: John Quincy Adams (1817-25), William Seward (1861-69), Hamilton Fish (1869-77), Charles Evans Hughes (1921-25), General George Marshall (1947-49), Dean Acheson (1949-53), Henry Kissinger (1973-77), Daniel Webster (1841-43 and 1850-52), Thomas Jefferson (1790-93), and John Hay (1898-1905). Adams, who topped the list, and Jefferson, who was placed at 9, later served as president. Singularly enough, as president, Adams has mostly received average ratings, while Jefferson has been placed in the “near great” or “great” categories.
The concluding part of this article will appear tomorrow.
