Leadership in Turbulent Times

I visited the Barnes and Noble bookstore the other day thinking I might purchase the new Woodward book — Fear: Trump in the White House.  After picking it up and riffling through the pages, I realized I’d already read several excerpts and heard much about its contents debated on cable news. I decided to wait to check it out of the library, but instead reached for my wallet to buy Doris Kearns Goodwin’s new book— Leadership in Turbulent Times.

She has previously written books about Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson.  Now, she returns to those four presidents to take another look at their leadership abilities during the periods for which they are remembered.  While I have only dipped into its pages briefly, it begs to be read completely through to the end.  

It seems as though turbulent times stick by our sides on a permanent basis; today is certainly not an exception.  The years prior to the Civil War saw disruption in the legislative process when the subject of slavery came under consideration.  In 1856 while deliberating the issue of slavery in Kansas, the anti-slave Senator Sumner of Massachusetts gave an impassioned speech against it.  It so inflamed one man, a member of the House of Representatives, that he entered the floor of the Senate and repeatedly struck Sumner on the head with his cane.  Reasoned discourse had broken down.

Two years later in 1858 the subject of slavery in Kansas still raised ire.  During one debate a Republican and a Democrat argued to the point of exchanging blows.  Before the sergeant-at-arms could bring order to the chamber, more than thirty members had joined in.  Two Republicans ganged up on one Democrat and successfully ripped the hairpiece off his head.  When things settled down, Kansas entered the Union as a free state.

Fiery personalities appeared before that.  In 1818, General Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish-controlled Florida to attack a gathering group of Seminole Indians.  Henry Clay, the speaker of the house at the time, was infuriated by Jackson’s action.  Little good it did for his side because Jackson went on to become elected president and was responsible for the Indian Removal Act that resulted in The Trail of Tears forced march.  Jackson was very much the authoritarian while Clay became known as the Great Compromiser.  At this period heated debates over tariffs came about.  For the record, President Trump has expressed admiration for Jackson and his style of governing.

Since “fake news” has entered the recent dialogue, I found it interesting to look for examples where other presidents abhorred their press coverage.  The first example looks at Thomas Jefferson who was pro-press, that is until the stories were about him.  Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams used the press to insult each other.  Newspapers that supported Jefferson called Adams such things as a hermaphrodite, while Adams’ press support accused Jefferson of being the “son of a half-breed Indian squaw.”

Teddy Roosevelt shrewdly used the reporting to his own end.  He’d give reporters a story on Sunday and then waited to base his decisions on how the public reacted on Monday.  In the Spanish-American War he took along his own reporter to write positive stories about him and his actions during the war.

I found it surprising to learn how far Woodrow Wilson went with attempts to control the press in World War I.  He tried censoring their reporting or writing his own propaganda stories to submit to them.  He wanted desperately to be granted the authority to exercise censorship over the press, but the senate and the  house of representatives never consented to it.

Harry Truman complained about his press coverage but got the last laugh when he defeated Tom Dewey.  Newspaper publishers were mostly united in their preference and favor for Dewey.  The Chicago Daily Tribune, so certain Dewey would win, even printed their paper with the erroneous headline, “Dewey Defeats Truman.”  A picture shows Truman holding it up and grinning from ear to ear.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein doggedly pursued a story and coaxed an informant known as “Deep Throat” to uncover the Nixon administration’s wrongdoings.  As more information became known, Nixon even tried to get the FBI involved to kill the investigation into the Watergate affair.  Affairs became naked to the public view and Nixon resigned the presidency.

Doris Kearns Goodwin tries to answer some questions in her latest book: Do the times make the leader or does the leader shape the times?  How can a leader infuse a sense of purpose and meaning into people’s lives?  What is the difference between power, title, and leadership?  Is leadership possible without a purpose larger than personal ambition?  I’m anxious to read the book through to the end to discover the answers.