The Presidency in Flux

The Presidency in Flux By George E. Reedy Columbia University Press, 133 pp., $5.95 Author Reedy came to the public’s attention primarily as a result of a short stint as President Lyndon Johnson’s first press secretary. He later gained a certain amount of notice in journalistic and academic circles for his provocative and useful short volume, not quite appropriately entitled The Twilight of the Presidency. Unlike so many of those pompous and dreary memoirs penned by scores of former White House counselors, Reedy’s book was a rather bitter account of what he felt was the growing isolation of Presidents from reality. His message then, and it is repeated often in these lectures, is that recent Presidents are regrettably without peers; hence an aloof, regal arrogance, combined with an advisory system almost designed to deceive the incumbent, has resulted. Reedy’s gloomy analysis found a welcome audience among a large number of journalists and academics who for the first time since FDR had begun to question the premise that activist, purposeful Presidents were what was needed to lead this nation to the promised land.

His message was not an unimportant one, though it struck many readers as embellished and as too singularly a characterization of the later Lyndon Johnson years. In any event, embattled as the Presidency has clearly become, its twilight is still in the distant future. Indeed, a rather tough institution, the Presidency is likely to be with us for a long time to come, Vietnam and Watergate notwithstanding. The important point, however, is that the task of making the Presidency safe for democracy is a significant concern; and, implicitly if not explicitly, this is the problem on which Reedy dwells.

TC

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Thomas E. Cronin

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The Presidency in Flux By George E. Reedy Columbia University Press, 133 pp., $5.95 Author Reedy came to the public’s attention primarily as a result of a short stint as President Lyndon Johnson’s first press secretary. He later gained a certain amount of notice in journalistic and academic circles for his provocative and useful short volume, not quite appropriately entitled The Twilight of the Presidency. Unlike so many of those pompous and dreary memoirs penned by scores of former White House counselors, Reedy’s book was a rather bitter account of what he felt was the growing isolation of Presidents from reality. His message then, and it is repeated often in these lectures, is that recent Presidents are regrettably without peers; hence an aloof, regal arrogance, combined with an advisory system almost designed to deceive the incumbent, has resulted. Reedy’s gloomy analysis found a welcome audience among a large number of journalists and academics who for the first time since FDR had begun to question the premise that activist, purposeful Presidents were what was needed to lead this nation to the promised land.

His message was not an unimportant one, though it struck many readers as embellished and as too singularly a characterization of the later Lyndon Johnson years. In any event, embattled as the Presidency has clearly become, its twilight is still in the distant future. Indeed, a rather tough institution, the Presidency is likely to be with us for a long time to come, Vietnam and Watergate notwithstanding. The important point, however, is that the task of making the Presidency safe for democracy is a significant concern; and, implicitly if not explicitly, this is the problem on which Reedy dwells.