Historians question White House presidential bios
NEW YORK (AP) — Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin has read a lot of upbeat material about American presidents, but some of the entries on the White House website were so sunny that they reminded her of the happy talk at Boston Red Sox baseball games.
"When we go to the ballpark, they'll put on the scoreboard the statistics of the players who are coming to bat and they'll always find something good to say," says the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian. "Maybe the guy has a .150 batting average, but they'll say, 'In the last six games, he hit .367.'"
The White House site, http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents, offers one-page summaries of all 44 presidents, granting equal time to record-making sluggers and inadequate bench-warmers. Much of the material is taken directly from a companion book by the White House Historical Association first released in 1964 and last reissued in 2009. "The Presidents of the United States of America" is a glossy, illustrated paperback that includes a foreword by President Barack Obama, who writes: "I hope it not only teaches you about America's past, but also ignites a passion to build America's future."
But the White House biographies offer an unusual history lesson. Some are examples of blatant boosterism and outdated scholarship. Others are oddly selective or politically incorrect.
George W. Bush's entry, for example, makes no reference to Hurricane Katrina, a disaster many thought his administration handled poorly, or the economic collapse of 2008, but it does find room for the names of his dogs. Ronald Reagan's biography does not mention the Iran-Contra scandal, which made headlines during his second term.
Gerald Ford's 1974 pardon of Richard Nixon is noted in a few words, with nothing about the fierce criticism it received. Jimmy Carter's so-called "malaise" speech is not cited. Vietnam is included on Lyndon Johnson's page (and spelled "Viet Nam"), but not his fateful decision to send ground troops.
Thomas Jefferson is introduced as a "powerful advocate of liberty" who "inherited some 5,000 acres of land," but is not identified as an owner of slaves. Andrew Jackson's page says virtually nothing about his advocacy of slavery or harsh treatment of American Indians. The life of William Henry Harrison, a military commander who became the ninth president, is narrated as a valiant crusade against Indians.
The White House would not comment about the site, but spokesman Josh Earnest said the administration would consult with the historical association about updating it.
The biographies were commissioned during the Kennedy administration and were meant to complement the paintings of presidents that hang in the White House. According to historian and White House aide Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy "took a keen personal interest in the project" and would often check on the books' progress. (On the White House site, the Kennedy administration is credited for raising "new hope for both the equal rights of Americans and the peace of the world.")
"He saw the book not just as a portrait gallery, but as a distillation of the public history of the American democracy," Schlesinger, who died in 2007, wrote in the introduction to the 1964 edition.
The White House Historical Association, an independent nonprofit organization established 50 years ago by then first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, said in a statement that "The purpose of the biographies was to provide a brief, popular historical sketch to accompany the images of the official White House portraits and meant to enhance the public's enjoyment of their White House tour."
Historian Michael Beschloss, a member of the historical association and an editor of the 2009 companion book, would not comment directly on the biographies. He did say that one of the goals of the country's revolutionary leaders was to bring a more democratic spirit to scholarship.
"The Founders felt that one of the most important things that differentiated us from the European regimes they wanted to get away from was that Americans would be and should be as relentlessly self-critical as possible and learn from both the successes and shortcomings of earlier generations of leaders and citizens," Beschloss says.
The essays from George Washington through Kennedy that appear online were written by Frank Freidel, a Harvard University scholar and biographer of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Freidel died in 1993. Paul Finkelman, author of a recent and disapproving biography of Millard Fillmore, thinks the early entries date back to the "consensus" theory of American history, when slavery was minimized and the most impassioned supporters of Reconstruction — Radical Republicans — were regarded as extremists. Reconstruction was a controversial federal effort to give blacks more rights in the South after the Civil War ended.The White House portraits of Fillmore and other presidents sympathetic to the South are softened, and Lincoln's assassination is regretted because it makes the alleged excesses of Reconstruction possible. "For with Lincoln's death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died," the entry concludes.
"That's a moronic statement," says historian Eric Foner, author of "Reconstruction," the acclaimed 1988 release that helped change thinking on the post-Civil War era, and winner this year of the Bancroft Prize and the Lincoln Prize for "The Fiery Trial," a Lincoln biography.
"One would have to think about the purpose of the White House biographies. If the purpose is simply to instill admiration for all American presidents, it's working. If the purpose is to give citizens a realistic sense of the presidents, it's not working."
Some of the most poorly regarded presidents receive the gentlest treatment. Herbert Hoover was simply a "scapegoat" for the Great Depression who became "a powerful critic of the New Deal, warning against tendencies toward statism." Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's vice president who became president after a Southern radical assassinated Lincoln, is described as an "honest and honorable man" who was outsmarted by "Radical Republicans in Congress, brilliantly led and ruthless in their tactics."A new book about Johnson, by Pulitzer Prize winner Annette Gordon-Reed, shows him very differently. Gordon-Reed, winner of the Pulitzer for "The Hemingses of Monticello," writes that Johnson was not a victim of the times, but a stubborn participant, an advocate of restoring white dominance in the South. He was committed, in his own words, to "a country for white men" and a "government for white men."
Gordon-Reed called the Johnson biography on the website "a pretty positive assessment" that "follows the line that the Radical Republicans were the villains." She also noted that the entry twice referred to blacks as Negroes, formerly widely used to characterize black Americans but has become in recent decades a pejorative term.
"What's with the use of 'Negroes' in a modern document?" Gordon-Reed said. "Very strange."
Some essays leave out seemingly essential information. Harry Truman's does not mention his 1948 upset victory over Thomas E. Dewey, while George W. Bush's offers no detail about the prolonged election of 2000, which ended with a 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. Ford's includes some of his comments upon succeeding Nixon, but leaves out the most famous words: "Our long national nightmare is over."
Other entries are oddly personal. James Buchanan, Lincoln's immediate predecessor, presided over the rapid dissolution of the country. But his page begins with a seemingly more meaningful detail: He was the nation's only bachelor-president. James Madison's story opens even more intimately. He was "a small, wizened man," who appeared "old and worn," and might have pleased no one but for the charms of his "buxom" wife Dolley.
Recent biographies, their authorship undetermined, suggest a competition for which president made the country most wonderful. Ronald Reagan's notes that "the Nation was enjoying its longest recorded period of peacetime prosperity without recession or depression" at the end of his second term, in 1989. Bill Clinton's page boasts that "the U.S. enjoyed more peace and economic well-being than at any time in its history." President George W. Bush's tax cuts "helped set off an unprecedented 52 straight months of job creation."
Not all presidents are judged successes. Ulysses Grant "provided neither vigor nor reform," his biography reads. "Looking to Congress for direction, he seemed bewildered." Franklin Pierce had hoped to ease tensions between North and South, but his policies, "far from preserving calm, hastened the disruption of the Union." The wrongdoings which would define Warren G. Harding's administration are noted, as is the Watergate scandal that made Nixon the only president to resign the office, and Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
The companion book is much more balanced on the past few presidents, with the newer essays written by Beschloss. Katrina is noted in the Bush entry and Iran-Contra for Reagan. Subtle changes are made elsewhere. "Negroes," in Andrew Johnson's entry, becomes African-Americans. "Buxom" is gone from Madison's biography.
The Obama page, written just after he took office, is highly favorable. He is presented as a gifted and civic-minded politician facing "the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression." The entry states that the country's founders would not have expected an African-American president and cites Obama's election as proof "the American system was still open to fresh talent."
Online, Obama's biography is equally positive, but quite brief, just six paragraphs, with no details about the historic 2008 campaign. It ends with his inauguration.
(기사내용)
미국 백악관 역대 대통령 전기에 오류
역사가들에 의하면 백악관의 역대 대통령의 전기를 보면 미국의 너무 밝은 면만 올라와 있다고 한다.
백악관 사이트의 44명 역대대통령의 전기에는 야구에 비유하면 홈런 타자와 예비선수가 동등한 분량으로 올라와 있는데 오바마 대통령은 “미국의 과거사에 대해 배움을 주고 미래에 대한 정열에 불을 붙이기를 희망한다.” 고 썼다.
미국 백악관의 역대대통령 전기에는 역사적 교훈도 있지만 또 여러 오류도 발견할 수 있다. 조지 부시 대통령은 2008년의 경제위기를 초래하게 한 것 보다는 그의 개에 대한 소개가 실려 있고, 로날드 레이건, 제랄드 포드, 지미 카터와 린든 존슨 대통령이 재직 중 실패한 정책들에 대한 언급이 실려 있지 않다.
백악관은 웹사이트에 대해 언급을 하지 않으면서 역사적 관점에서 다시 재검토할 것이다고 말했다. 역대 대통령의 전기는 백악관에 걸려있는 대통령들의 업적에 대해 찬사를 보낼 목적으로 시작 되었고 케네디 대통령은 새로운 프로젝트에 지대한 관심을 갖고 있었고 미국인의 평등권과 미국의 민주주의 역사를 확산시키는 것이라고 평가했다고 한다.
백악관 역사위원회는 대통령 전기는 백악관에 걸려있는 역대 대통령의 초상화와 관련된 역사적 사실을 알려주고 백악관 관람에 흥밋거리를 제공하는 것이다라고 했다. 역사가들에 의하면 초기 미국 대통령들은 미국이 유럽과 다른 것은 미국이 항상 자신을 비판하고 이전 세대와 지도자들의 잘못된 점을 고쳐나가는 것 이었다고 한다.
KNS뉴스통신 kns@kns.tv
