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April 12, 2008; Page W8

White House Ghosts
By Robert Schlesinger
Simon & Schuster, 581 pages, $30

The eight hours Richard Goodwin spent writing the speech one March day in 1965 were "the finest moments of my life in politics," and the address itself, delivered in the chamber of the House of Representatives that very night -- leading to the passage of the Voting Rights Act -- was perhaps the high point of Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency. "It is not just Negroes, but it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we . . . shall . . . overcome," Johnson said, making the black protest anthem his own rallying cry.

After the moving speech, reporters were told that Johnson himself had composed it and was responsible, in particular, for the inclusion of its most memorable phrase. But the speech and the phrase were, in reality, Mr. Goodwin's work. After a year of close collaboration with the president, he had drawn on his own knowledge of the man -- "not merely his views, but his manner of expression, patterns of reasoning, the natural cadences of his speech," Mr. Goodwin recalled in his 1988 memoir. The speechwriter had sought "to heighten and polish -- illuminate, as it were -- his inward beliefs and natural idiom, to attain . . . an authenticity of expression." Though Mr. Goodwin's hands were on the typewriter, "the document was pure Johnson."

The longstanding tradition back then was that the presidential speechwriter should remain largely out of public sight, his existence almost a secret shame, intimating, as a speechwriter for President Carter once put it, that the nation's chief executive was "too lazy or too stupid to decide for himself what he is going to say." President-elect John F. Kennedy, with his Inaugural Address in nearly final form, even pretended to be writing a first draft of it in longhand so as to give a leading reporter the impression that he, Kennedy, and not Theodore Sorensen or anyone else, was the author. But in recent decades, Washington journalist Robert Schlesinger observes in "White House Ghosts," the phantoms -- "for better or worse" -- have become far more visible.

Mr. Schlesinger, who interviewed more than 90 speechwriters and other White House aides, has written an evenhanded account of the speechwriting for presidents, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to George Walker Bush, with a chapter devoted to each presidency. His episodic history is fluent, well researched and richly detailed.

Raymond Moley, one of FDR's speechwriters during his first term, saw himself as more than a wordsmith, and rightly so. "My job from the beginning . . . was to sift proposals for him, discuss facts and ideas with him, and help him crystallize his own policy," Moley wrote in 1939. Implicit in this conception of the speechwriter's job, notes Mr. Schlesinger, was the idea "that policies and words are inextricably linked -- the former cannot be conjured in the absence of the latter." Moley, Sam Rosenman and other Roosevelt speechwriters were advisers as well as wordsmiths. But the job "has evolved," Mr. Schlesinger notes, "as television eclipsed radio as the nation's medium, as the White House staff grew from a handful to a sprawling group of specialized cadres, and, of course, as each president has dealt with it in his own way."

In Carol Gelderman's earlier study of presidential speechwriting -- the incisive and concise (221 pages) "All the Presidents' Words" (1997) -- she identified the Nixon administration as the one where the decisive break occurred. President Nixon "established the first formally structured White House speechwriting office, called the Writing and Research Department," its ranks fluctuating from 12 to 50, part of what Nixon called the "PR group." But, said Ms. Gelderman, an English professor at the University of New Orleans, "the writers rarely assumed a consultative role in policy matters. Unlike their predecessors from Rosenman to [LBJ's Harry] McPherson, Nixon's writers had no regular access to the Oval Office." Indeed, the reclusive Nixon wrote some speeches virtually on his own. Mr. Schlesinger's account bears Ms. Gelderman out.

Speechwriters had little involvement in the making of policy and only limited access to the president in most of the administrations that followed Nixon's, even that of the "Great Communicator." "For eight years," writes Mr. Schlesinger, "Ronald Reagan's speechwriters had had diminishing access to a president who was remote from even his closest aides. [But he] had presented a clear ideology and style so they had gotten his voice even though they might go months without seeing him." Between the ideological conservatives writing Reagan's speeches and the more pragmatic senior staffers in his inner circle, there was continuing tension -- tension that was constructive during the first term, in Mr. Schlesinger's view, but, with some different people involved, destructive during the second.

Reagan appreciated the importance of speeches to a successful presidency, but George Herbert Walker Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford were less concerned with the words they proclaimed, Mr. Schlesinger reports. Mr. Bush disdained "high-flying" rhetoric and never even practiced delivering his speeches beforehand. Mr. Carter "didn't much like the idea of using [speechwriters], ever," one of his wordsmiths recalled. President Ford "rarely faced up to the fact that making a major address is one of the most important things a President does," said his chief speechwriter, Robert Hartmann. Journalist John Hersey, shadowing Ford for a week in 1975 much as he had shadowed Harry Truman in 1950, found himself "profoundly disturbed by what seemed to me the aimlessness of the speechwriting session" that Ford had with his writers in advance of an address at the University of Notre Dame. Hersey contrasted it with a speechwriting session of Truman's, "at which most of his principal advisers, including Dean Acheson, were present, and during which policy was really and carefully shaped through its articulation."

Presidential speeches are important not only as a means of educating and persuading the public but also, according to Mr. Schlesinger's father, the late historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., "as a means of forcing decisions, crystallizing policies, and imposing discipline" within the executive branch.

During the presidency of Bill Clinton, there was something of a return to the older tradition of involving speechwriters in the making of policy, the author says. "There was more crossover between the speechwriters and policy aides than in any presidency since [LBJ's]. . . . Clinton preferred to work on speeches with aides who could answer substantive questions about policy." But Clinton also often preferred to ad lib his remarks rather than stick to his prepared speech, and he spoke so often that, in effect, he devalued his own words. In a typical year, by one count, he spoke in public 550 times, compared with Reagan's 320 times and Truman's 88.

Unlike his father and despite his own oft-derided propensity for verbal gaffes, George W. Bush has recognized the importance of speeches, notes Mr. Schlesinger. "He put a great deal of time and energy into speech preparation and faith in his speechwriters." As some of Bush's speeches illustrate, particularly in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, a president's words do matter.

By departing from the older tradition, recent presidents seem to have inadvertently denied themselves the power of speechwriting to clarify their own thinking and aid in the making of policy. Arthur Schlesinger, to whom his son has dedicated "White House Ghosts," said he fully agreed with Carol Gelderman on "the necessity of 'uniting important policymaking and speechwriting functions in one trusted adviser.' " Robert Schlesinger refrains from endorsing that prescription, but his extensive study seems to provide further support for it.

Mr. Landers is a writer in Arlington, Va.,

and the author of "An Honest Writer:

The Life and Times of James T. Farrell" (Encounter).

Presidential Words,
WSJ,
12.4.2008,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120795568431409207

March 31 1981

Reagan stable after shooting

From The Guardian archive

March 31 1981

The Guardian

President Reagan was last night recovering in hospital after a successful two-hour operation to remove a single bullet from his left lung following an assassination attempt outside the Hilton Hotel in the centre of Washington.

Dr Dennis O'Leary, a spokesman for the George Washington University Hospital, said the President was awake and in a "stable condition." He said there had been no serious danger to the President's life. Dr O'Leary said the bullet had ricocheted off his seventh rib. But he assured the American people that the 70-year-old President was in "excellent" condition and in good physical shape.

Three other men were seriously wounded in the shooting. They were the President's 40-year-old press secretary, Mr James Brady, a Washington policeman, and a secret service agent. Dr O'Leary said a bullet had passed through Mr Brady's brain and he had experienced severe brain injury.

According to the doctors, Mr Reagan had been given a blood transfusion on his arrival at the hospital and before going into surgery. The bullet was found lodged in the tissue of the lung and was easily removed because there was no abdominal bleeding. The doctors suggested that Mr Reagan could be up and about again within a fortnight.

The doctor said that Mr Reagan had sailed through the operation" for a man of his age. But he warned that an operation of the kind he had been through causes "stress" to the body, though in Mr Reagan's case, because of his good physical condition, the doctor did not seem unduly concerned.

The White House said the President was in good spirits as he was wheeled into surgery . He told Senator Paul Laxalt, "Don't worry about me, I'll make it." A doctor said the President had told Mrs Reagan, "Honey, I forgot to duck", and that he looked up at assembled aides and said, "Who's minding the store?" and that he joked with surgeons, "Please tell me you're Republicans."

The Secretary of State, Mr Alexander Haig, took control of the government soon after the incident, awaiting the arrival in Washington of the vice-president, Mr George Bush,

Speaking from the White House, Mr Haig said he had been in touch with America's friends and allies abroad.

Mr Haig looked shaken as he read the statement in a broken voice, saying that no defence alert had been taken. In the pandemonium outside the Washington Hilton after the shooting, secret service men wrestled the assailant to the ground. He was named as John Warnock Hinckley, aged 25, of Evergreen, Colorado. The secret service said that Hinckley seemed to have acted alone.

From The Guardian archive >
March 31 1981 > Reagan stable after shooting,
G, Republished 31.3.2007, p. 36,
http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2007/03/31/pages/ber36.shtml

From The Times Archive

On This Day - May 18, 1976

After the Watergate scandal,
Jimmy Carter’s position
as a Washington outsider
became an electoral asset,
and he received more than 50 per cent
of the popular vote in the 1977 election

MR JIMMY CARTER’S campaign technique has improved since the primary season opened in New Hampshire last February. He now carries the aura of a man who might very well be President next January, instead of seeming simply one of a large number of candidates claiming that the wind of victory was in his sails.

He treats the topics he discusses seriously, balancing specific proposals with his now familiar oath of sincerity which still sounds sincere, even though he has been swearing it in public several times a day for nearly 18 months.

At a rally in a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in a working class suburb of Baltimore on Friday night, the effects of this balance in his oratory were striking. He started to talk about the need for honesty in government and the hall fell silent. Everyone listened. This is the thing which disturbs everyone in America, the long-latent suspicion that every politician in Washington was corrupt, which exploded with Watergate’s demonstration that the suspicion was often justified.

He said that the important thing was for the candidate to keep the confidence of the electors. “I would far rather lose the election, I would rather lose my life, than betray your confidence”, he said. Enough people have heard him and believed him to bring him to the brink of victory.

From The Times Archive,
On This Day - May 18, 1976,
18.5.2005,
http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp - broken URL

From The Times Archive

On This Day - July 20, 1974

A resolution submitted
to the House Judiciary Committee
sought to impeach President Richard Nixon
over the Watergate scandal.

Two weeks later Nixon
became the first US president to resign.

A FOUR-PART draft resolution impeaching President Nixon for alleged “high crimes and misdemeanours” ranging from obstruction of justice over the Watergate affair to personal tax fraud was presented to the House Judiciary Committee today. The devastating case was presented by Mr John Doar, chief committee counsel to the 38 members who will have to vote whether to submit a full bill of particulars to the full House. A vote is expected within a week.

Mr Doar was quoted by members as saying “reasonable men acting reasonably would find the President guilty”. Mr Nixon was cited by Mr Doar for:

1. Being “personally and directly responsible” for the cover-up of the Watergate break-in which had been done on his “behalf”. Specifically, he was accused of suborning perjury, paying hush money, destroying evidence, and interfering with the legal investigations.

2. “Massive and persistent” abuse of his powers through the break-in at Dr Ellsberg’s psychiatrists’ office, unlawful wiretapping and abuse of government agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Internal Revenue Service.

3. Contempt of Congress through his refusal to supply subpoenaed evidence.

4. Fraud in his income taxes, through claiming over $450,000 deductions for a fraudulent gift of his pre-Presidential papers to the nation.

From The Times Archive,
On This Day - July 20, 1974,
The Times,
20.7.2005,
http://www.newsint-archive.co.uk/pages/main.asp - broken URL

November 23, 1963

A tragedy for the world

From The Guardian archive

Saturday November 23, 1963

Guardian

President Kennedy was in Texas to gather support for his Civil Rights programme. Like Lincoln before him, it has cost him his life. He believed in it and he fought for it.

The best memorial to him would be a more rapid acceptance of it in the South and in Northern communities where the subtler forms of segregation and discrimination are practised and, for that matter, in every country where equal rights and opportunities are not accorded without regard to race or religion.

Civil rights became the foremost part of his domestic programme. He had to move carefully; both because haste could so easily bring bloodshed, and because he was opposed by the Southern wing of his own party.

His platform in the 1960 Presidential campaign came out boldly for the Negro's right to share school benches and polling booths with whites, and for the Federal Government's duty to enforce this. He was backed in this by Lyndon Johnson, himself a Southerner and now President.

To the world, he will be remembered as the President who helped to bring the thaw in the cold war. The real change came only after Cuba.

That crisis, taking the world to the edge of a nuclear war, left its mark on both him and Mr Khrushchev. Kennedy certainly - and Mr Khrushchev probably - knew that a false move by either of them could have been catastrophic.

Although, in a conventional sense, the Americans won the encounter, there was no crowing in the White House. The President recognised how frightening were the consequences of misunderstandings. But he worked for improvement, as did Mr Khrushchev, and it came. He leaves in this a monument - but one on to which his successors must build.

President Kennedy respected his allies and worked with them. His last visit to this country was during a lightning tour of Europe - part triumphal and part persuasive - in which he sought to reassure people and Governments that the United States was as deeply committed as ever to the defence of Western Europe.

But he will be remembered for his youth and friendliness. "The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans," he said.

To people in many other countries it was gladdening to see leading the greatest of Western nations a young man, though one matured by war and years of public service.

He and Mrs Kennedy made the White House what it has hardly ever been before - a place where artists and thinkers of all nations and creeds were welcomed. He was a true liberal, a thinker himself no less than a man of action, and a courageous leader.

From the Guardian archive > November 23, 1963 >
A tragedy for the world, G, Republished 23.11.2006,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/1963/nov/23/usa.
mainsection

President Kennedy assassinated

November 22, 1963

Alistair Cooke, New York

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was shot during a motorcade drive through downtown Dallas at 1pm (6pm British time) this afternoon. He died in the emergency room of the Parkland Memorial Hospital 32 minutes after the attack. He was 46. He is the third president to be assassinated in office since Lincoln, and the first since President McKinley in 1901.

Police held as chief suspect Lee Oswald, said to be a self-styled Communist who once renounced US citizenship and unsuccessfully sought to become a Russian citizen. The chairman of a Fair Play for Cuba committee, he was arrested in a cinema after a policeman had been killed.

The new President is the Vice-President, Lyndon Baines Johnson, a 55-year-old native Texan, who took the oath of office in Dallas at five minutes to four at the hands of a woman judge, and later arrived in Washington with the body of the dead President.

This is being written in the numbed interval between the first shock and the harried attempt to reconstruct a sequence of fact from an hour of tumult. However, this is the first assassination of a world figure that took place in the age of television, and every network and station in the country took up the plotting of the appalling story. It begins to form a grisly pattern, contradicted by a grisly preface: the projection on television screens of a happy crowd and a grinning President only a few seconds before the gunshots.

The President was almost at the end of his two-day tour of Texas. He was to make a luncheon speech in the Dallas Trade Mart building and his motor procession had another mile to go. He had had the warmest welcome of his trip from a great crowd at the airport.

The cries a personal touch were so engaging that Mrs Kennedy took the lead and walked from the ramp of the presidential plane to a fence that held the crowd in. She was followed by the President, and they seized hands and forearms and smiled at the people.

The Secret Service and police were relieved to get them into their car, where Mrs Kennedy sat between the President and John B Connally, the governor of Texas. Dallas police had instituted the most stringent security in the city's history: they wanted no repetition of the disgraceful brawl that humiliated Adlai Stevenson when he attended a United Nations rally on October 24. The motorcade was going along slowly but smoothly when three muffled shots, which the crowd first mistook for fireworks, cracked through the cheers.

President Kennedy assassinated, Alistair Cooke, New York,
November 22, 1963,
The Guardian > Archives, G, p. 30, 23.11.2005,
http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2005/11/23/
pages/ber30.shtml

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