A Higher Purpose

By Thomas J. Whalen
(Ivan R. Dee, 320 pages, $28)

For presidential buffs already tired of the 2008 campaign, historian Thomas J. Whalen’s A Higher Purpose is likely to be more riveting than anything written about the current crop of candidates.

Who could be bored with accounts of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy? Whalen offers nine sketches of presidents in action that, he says, demonstrate that very rare commodity: courage.

His choices will surely start arguments, and that, I suspect, is the point. Thus he includes Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon, which will anger those inclined to a conspiratorial view of history. Following Nixon’s resignation, Ford was viewed as a humble man, a perfect antidote to Watergate. But the pardon, intended to get the country past the trauma of the scandal, ruined him. Ford never regained his standing in the polls and was defeated in his bid for reelection two years later. In my view, this meets the author’s test of putting “conscience over expediency.”

Another apt choice is F.D.R., whom Whalen lauds for supplying destroyers to the British to fight the Nazis when the U.S. was not yet at war and America Firsters were decrying the president as a warmonger. F.D.R., of course, managed to get reelected, but Whalen wisely does not insist that all his presidents suffer at the polls for their good deeds. Sometimes, he notes, courage pays.

Also, his compelling account of Harry Truman’s sacking of the insubordinate General Douglas MacArthur makes one grateful that, at the very least, today’s generals know their place in the constitutional order (even if today’s presidents don’t).

Whalen’s inclusion of J.F.K. is more problematic. Given that the book’s subtitle is Profiles in Presidential Courage—a self-conscious nod toward J.F.K.’s Pulitzer Prize-winning work—and that Whalen has already written a book-length study of Kennedy, one is rather on the lookout for signs of Camelot adoration. Here, Whalen cites Kennedy for ordering the University of Alabama to admit two black students, a high point of his presidency.

The question is whether J.F.K. was inspired by a belated pang of conscience or a pragmatic assessment that the political landscape was changing. It is no doubt true, as Whalen says, that Kennedy was sickened by pictures of Alabama police unleashing dogs on blacks. By then, however, much of the country was also sickened. And as Whalen notes, Kennedy failed to feel sick when blacks were being beaten and worse during the first 29 months of his administration. But better late than never.