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Plain-spoken  Harry Truman
(photo on right)

Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings

Presidential peccadilloes

Notre Dame's Department of American studies

Never at a loss for plain-spoken yet provocative statements, Harry Truman once told a White House gathering, "The president of the United States is two people. He's the president and he's a human being."

Making a distinction between the nation's highest office and its temporary occupant helps explain the complex way Americans view and remember presidents. Despite what's been called "the glorious burden" -- with its powers and responsibilities, pomp and circumstance -- the human element is never too far from public consideration for anyone reaching the pinnacle of our political system.

Even George Washington -- he who was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen" -- endured civic complaint when he traveled by carriage rather than horseback for a brief time. The king of England rode in a coach; the president of the new United States did not. Washington returned to his horse -- albeit with a gold-trimmed saddle cinched over a leopard skin that citizens judged appropriate for the man and his office.

From the early days of the Republic until today, presidents have engaged in a delicate balancing act. For the sake of popular support, they have sought to be perceived as having common bonds with the electorate at large. At the same time, though, they have wanted that same electorate to see them as elevated enough in stature to be worthy of the trust to govern a nation.

This continuing, democratic interplay between being "one of us" and "above the others" assumes special importance in assessing personal aspects of a public figure. That Andrew Jackson grew up in humble, log cabin surroundings and became a much-celebrated military hero proved influential in seeking the White House during the 1820s. And his nickname of Old Hickory established rapport between this new kind of American leader -- the previous six presidents had been aristocratic but not monarchical -- and people he hoped would follow. Both his up-from-the-bootstraps biography and his informal sobriquet established traditions subsequent presidents adapted for their purposes.

In fact, William Henry Harrison in 1840 defeated Jackson's vice president and one-term successor, Martin Van Buren, by being portrayed as a hard cider-loving commoner with a log cabin upbringing. Harrison, actually the son of a wealthy Virginia planter, and his fellow Whigs felt compelled to bend the truth to appeal to voters.

Early in our history, the preoccupation with image rooted itself in the American political soil. Party-sponsored newspapers either championed or castigated public figures of the time, as both personal and ideological matters became popular journalistic subjects.

When James Callender, a former supporter of Thomas Jefferson, turned on the man from Monticello, he published a story in 1802 that the president was involved in an affair with one of his slaves. "By this wench Sally," Callender wrote, "our president has had several children. There is not an individual in the neighbourhood of Charlottesville who does not believe the story, and not a few who know it." Thus was born the long-disputed story of a relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings.

Genetic testing nearly 200 years after the allegation first circulated offered evidence that the most cerebral of the Founding Fathers probably had fathered at least one of Hemings' children. This disclosure provoked a flood of modern-day commentary about the author of the Declaration of Independence as a hypocritical slave master. Yet, even with the new information, profound questions persist. "We know more than anybody," notes Daniel P. Jordan, president of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, "and we don't know anything about the nature of that relationship."

Both the historical and recent debate about Jefferson's life underscore the compelling human curiosity surrounding the presidency. As civics books point out, whoever occupies the office is chief of state, chief executive of the federal government, commander-in-chief of the military, principal diplomat and leader of a political party. These interwoven roles define official responsibilities, but personal traits and characteristics often determine how Americans respond to a president.

Whether it be "Honest Abe" Lincoln's driving goal to preserve the Union, Theodore Roosevelt's rambunctious loquacity, Franklin D. Roosevelt's sunny self-confidence in dark times, Harry Truman's snappy candor, Dwight Eisenhower's avuncular reassurance, John Kennedy's self-effacing magnetism or Ronald Reagan's eagle-soaring optimism and humor, these human factors helped maintain connections with the public.

By its nature human response of this kind is subjective -- a feeling with emotional ties that contributes to an overall opinion. Since Washington's time but with more dramatic emphasis during the 20th century, the various forms of communications have served as principal couriers in forming the impressions Americans carry around in their heads about public figures.

Gone are the days of a partisan press more committed to shaping stories for electoral advantage than to an accurate portrayal of our political life. Now robustly independent and competitive media provide words and pictures that place sustained, at times ceaseless, attention on the White House. First with film and later with videotape and live-shot television technology, presidents present themselves with concern for stagecraft as much as statecraft. How we perceive the personality being projected is particularly important, given the institutional decline of political parties and the rise of independent-minded ticket-splitters.

The way journalists defined news at different times has greatly influenced what the public knew about their highest elected leaders. For instance, private matters received attention in the 19th century with the published rumors about Jefferson and the intrusive coverage of Grover Cleveland's honeymoon in 1886. (When Cleveland, a 49-year-old bachelor, married a 22-year-old woman, they never expected reporters to spy on their activities during a six-day wedding sojourn in Maryland. But newspaper readers learned in detail what the couple ate, wore and did.)

Even before reaching the White House, Jackson and Cleveland had to contend with personal stories intended to kill them politically. During the 1828 campaign, Andrew and Rachel Jackson were pilloried in opposition newspapers for engaging in adultery, because they had married several decades earlier without knowing that Rachel's divorce from her first husband had never become official. Jackson's victory that year was tempered by the fatal heart attack his troubled wife suffered before the inauguration. Despite a legendary iron will, Old Hickory would never be the same.

In 1884, Cleveland, a Democrat, overcame press charges that he had fathered an illegitimate child years before he became active in politics. Although the Republicans' battle cry -- "Ma! Ma! Where's my Pa? Going to the White House. Ha! Ha! Ha!" -- became popular, when it was reported that Cleveland accepted financial responsibility for the child and didn't deny the possibility of paternity -- the actual fact was in doubt -- the matter died down. Later, Cleveland's supporters shot back their own response to the competition's taunting question: "Gone to the White House. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

For much of the 20th century, journalists -- and hence the public -- avoided extensive discussion of the private lives of presidents. When the United States assumed a more prominent role on the world stage after the Spanish-American War and World War I, presidential power grew. With it came more deliberate control of information about the president by public relations-minded associates.

For instance, mystery and secrecy surrounded Woodrow Wilson's last 17 months in the White House after he suffered two strokes in 1919. It wasn't until the publication of Gene Smith's When the Cheering Stopped in 1964 that the whole story of First Lady Edith Wilson's presidential pinch-hitting became general knowledge. Working with a doctor, she shielded Wilson from government officials and the public, carrying out official business in his name.

People working for Wilson's successor, Warren G. Harding, resorted to blackmail and government suppression of a book to help hide Harding's protean philandering. Four years after his death in office in 1923, one impecunious mistress, Nan Britton, wrote The President's Daughter about their affair, assignations in an Oval Office closet, and their illegitimate child. Since the late 1920s and especially in recent times, behind-the scenes memoirs about every aspect of White House life have become dubious yet suggestive sources that help to balance and complement orchestrated presidential image-making.

Recalling the crippling polio that struck him in 1921, Franklin Roosevelt once remarked, "If you had spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, after that anything else would seem easy." The "anything else" in Roosevelt's case was, of course, the 12 years he served as president. Despite the Great Depression and Second World War, he projected a jovial self-assurance and utter fearlessness that radiated out to the people, inspiring them to follow his leadership.

Throughout those 12 years, FDR maintained almost total control over his public persona. As character-building as his paralysis proved to be, he worked overtime to conceal it. Reporters and photographers observed an unwritten rule to keep the disability secret, and appearances were planned with the president seated or able to reach a podium with minimal movement. Of more than 35,000 pictures taken of Roosevelt, just two show him in a wheelchair, while political cartoonists actually sketched him running or jumping.

As Hugh Gregory Gallagher explains in FDR's Splendid Deception, Roosevelt was both actor and politician. "He used his cigarette holder to suggest confidence and good cheer; his old-fashioned pince-nez glasses reminded people of their schoolteachers and of Woodrow Wilson," Gallagher notes. "His old fedora campaign hat was as familiar as an old shoe; his naval cape expressed dignity and drama. The complete package of props, together with the characteristic tilt of the head, the wave of the hand, the laugh, the smile, made FDR seem to the American people as familiar, as close as a family member." The Fireside Chats, which Roosevelt delivered so effectively on radio to living rooms across the country, reinforced the almost intimate connection he tried to cultivate.

Deception about the president extended to the women close to FDR. Although Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt remained legally wed, Eleanor's discovery of Franklin's affair with Lucy Mercer during World War I resulted in a complicated marital relationship of separate bedrooms but similar political objectives. While the First Lady devoted herself to her own work, travel and causes, he combined activities as president with the off-duty conviviality he enjoyed with at least five other women, including the later-widowed Lucy Mercer Rutherford. From everything we now know, FDR was never very far from ladies other than the First Lady -- four were with him in Warm Springs, Georgia, when he died in 1945 -- but the precise nature of each relationship remains the subject of rumor rather than fact.

FDR relaxed with feminine companions without fear of reporters publishing such news. At one press conference, with characteristic playfulness, he announced, "Where I am going I cannot tell you. When I am to get back I cannot tell you. And where I am going on my return I don't know. That's a lot of news, and it can't be released until I am ready." Setting the news agenda as he did kept the focus on the White House as the administration wanted, relegating reporters to the status of stenographers.

Running for president in 1932, the first of his four victorious campaigns, Roosevelt said, "The presidency is not merely an administrative office. That's the least of it. . . . It is preeminently a place of moral leadership." The political and journalistic climate that FDR did so much to influence continued the earlier trend of emphasizing the public performance and personality of the president while avoiding what might be considered the private life of the nation's highest official. What the phrase "moral leadership" means is less ambiguous in that environment because the lines between "public" and "private" are relatively clear.

For the past quarter-century, however, those lines have increasingly blurred. Today the notion of presidential privacy is almost an anachronism. Particularly in the realms of health and sexual activity, two off-limit subjects for several decades, a president or candidate for the office now endures scrutiny without defined limits. This stark change of approach -- a shift from taboo to tell-all -- is the consequence of several political and cultural causes that converged to create an entirely new ethos for the collection and circulation of personal information.

The traumas of the Vietnam War and Watergate raised suspicions about the veracity and virtue of two presidents, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Those suspicions, which proved to be warranted, forced journalists covering government and politics to reconsider how they went about their work. Stenographic reporting seemed insufficient when confronted with statements that tested the truth and deeds that flouted the law.

The investigative efforts of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post in revealing the tangled tale of Watergate influenced not only Nixon's resignation in 1974 but the way presidents -- both future and past -- would be treated and viewed. The impact of Bernstein and Woodward, especially their best-selling books All the President's Men (1974) and The Final Days (1976) about Nixon's final months in the White House, spread beyond journalism and altered the larger culture's receptivity to information previously deemed private. Once the barriers came down and the public seemed fascinated with what happened inside the corridors of power, the unwritten rules about the legitimacy -- or illegitimacy -- of specific subjects dramatically changed.

In late 1975, a little over a year after Nixon left office, a Senate committee report revealed that "a close friend" of President John Kennedy was simultaneously "a close friend" of mob leader Sam Giancana. When reporters identified the "close friend" as a woman, Judith Campbell Exner, America's modern-day Camelot no longer seemed as enchanting as before. The image of the martyred president with the perfect family competed with stories of troubling recklessness and an insatiable appetite for extramarital liaisons. Not long after the Senate report appeared, newspaper and magazine reports linked Kennedy to several other women, forcing journalists to reconsider how they went about covering the private lives of high public officials. Was it fair to avoid tawdry reality at the same time a president tried to present an illusion of domestic bliss?

With Kennedy we also subsequently learned about his chancy health and his long battle with Addison's disease and other ailments. The cheerful vigor he tried to project often masked excruciating pain and, at times, even problems with walking. As more details came out, reporters questioned their responsibility to scrutinize the physical condition of a president or someone seeking the office.

The more open environment for information that took shape in the mid-1970s has turned into the tell-all culture of today. In this respect, the White House is now treated as no different from Hollywood, Wall Street or any other visible or powerful institution peopled by individuals the public wants to know more about.

As this probing behind images and facades rooted itself in communications, the process for electing presidents also changed, becoming more open to citizen involvement and less dependent on the decision-making of party leaders. The new emphasis on primaries and caucuses put an end to smoke-filled rooms, where Democratic and Republican elders privately evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of White House hopefuls. The citizenry now learned about presidential candidates principally from the media. Among other things, these procedural reforms placed more responsibility on journalists to take the full measure of prospective presidents. Without three-dimensional profiles that included less flattering information, it became increasingly possible that the people would have a skewed perception of the nation's highest leader.

What happened in politics, government and communications during the late 1960s and 1970s set in motion forces that transformed how Americans view their presidents. The consequences of the Vietnam War and Watergate cast a pall on the White House that shows no signs of disappearing. In addition, revisionist historical studies of the private and public transgressions of previous presidents abound and vie with contemporary accounts about an incumbent president's personal and professional comportment.

Even before Ronald Reagan completed his eight years in the White House, nearly a dozen former members of his staff had published memoirs questioning his work ethic, style of governance, and preference for comics rather than a newspaper's front page. When one insider account revealed that an astrologer friendly with Nancy Reagan helped plan the president's travel schedule, people wondered aloud about not only the First Lady's clout but her husband's reliance on outside advice and the quality of that counsel.

Reagan poked fun at himself for not letting the presidency consume him, telling one reporter: "They say hard work never killed anyone, but I figure, why take a chance?" Day-to-day details of administration were delegated to others. Speaking at widely-covered public events to stress a theme or issue was his idea of what a president should do.

In President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, Lou Cannon, an author and Washington Post correspondent who covered Reagan as both governor of California and president, reports that White House Chief of Staff James Baker delivered a briefing book to the president the evening before an international economic summit began in 1983. Since the meetings were in the United States, Reagan was responsible for presiding at the sessions and guiding the discussions. The next morning, when Baker saw the briefing book exactly where he left it, he asked the president why he hadn't looked at it. "Well, Jim, The Sound of Music was on last night."

For Ronald Reagan, being president was, indeed, playing a role -- a public performance that advanced his administration's agenda. His "big picture" priorities often seemed to come from the reassuring, good-defeats-evil scripts of the big screen. In his acting days, he was cast as federal agent Brass Bancroft, who in the 1940 film Murder in the Air protects "the Inertia Projector" from falling into enemy hands. Able to knock unfriendly planes out of the air four miles away, the Hollywood-devised technology bears a striking resemblance to the Strategic Defense Initiative that he proposed as president in 1983.

SDI, of course, became popularly known as the "Star Wars" program, enhancing the cinematic character of the project -- and the Reagan presidency. Interestingly, though, commitment to SDI played a serious policy role in the demise of the Soviet Union. Whether motivated by movie story-lines or political ideology or both, the personal origins of Reagan's commitment pale in comparison to the eventual outcome.

Although Reagan's two terms as president took place during the new period of openness following Watergate, his private life never aroused an inordinate amount of curiosity. There was some discussion of his distance from his children and his devout absence from church on Sunday. But the closeness of his relationship to his wife and his repeated invocation of America as a "city upon a hill," worthy of its own reverence, struck resonant chords with the public.

How he actually spent his time as president was another matter, and the subject of much concern. The memoirs of those around him and interviews with insiders carried a common theme: Reagan's detachment from governing entrusted subordinates with more power than they deserved (witness the international shenanigans of Oliver North), and away from cameras or a stage he seemed very much alone. The smiling grandfatherly figure was, in reality, a distant relative we didn't really know.

While a sense of mystery surrounded Reagan as president and person, it's almost as though we know too much about Clinton. Who cares about the leader of the free world's preference in underwear? Well, when a young woman on MTV inquired about this subject early in his first term, Clinton obliged with a response.

The world would learn much more about Clinton and his preferences during his scandal-marred second term. Like the Senate committee investigation in 1975 that launched the posthumous probing of John Kennedy's libidinous licentiousness, Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's formal investigation of Clinton's past resulted in revelations about the president's relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky, sparking a media frenzy about it and related matters. This time, of course, the scrutiny involved a sitting president, and there were many more communications outlets pursuing the story with single-minded intensity.

Although charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power swirled around the White House, the tale of an incumbent president engaged in an extramarital dalliance with a woman half his age made some journalists and commentators pant after every scrap of information. Vigorous coverage, it was thought, might put to rest the lingering criticism that journalists looked the other way during Kennedy's time.

But determining precisely what deserves public scrutiny today presents serious ethical dilemmas. What can reporters do to achieve a sense of proportion between public and private concerns? How relevant is a president's financial condition? Are all health matters fair game? If a marriage continues despite a pattern of infidelity, is it anyone else's business other than the husband and wife's? How does the nation's leader interact with staff and go about the business of governing on a regular, away-from-cameras basis?

Such questions don't yield easy answers -- and they shouldn't, especially at a time when there is more inclination to divulge personal information. When privacy had a more exact definition and mutually-agreed boundaries, it was easier for a president to maintain control and the aura of power. Today the best a president and his staff can try to do is "spin" or manipulate their version of events in the most favorable way, with the results of such efforts enormously unpredictable.

Ever since Bill Clinton emerged as a presidential candidate in 1992, he has been the focus of endless examination and controversy. Stories about affairs, avoiding the draft and experimenting with marijuana served as a prelude to later reports about questionable business practices, a volcanic temper and several other sexual encounters. Ironically, though, this public figure about whom we've learned so much remains in the view of his most respected biographer, David Maraniss, a human puzzle, always concealing aspects of his life so we won't see the whole person.

In The Clinton Enigma, Maraniss observes, "All human beings have secrets, all have done things that they would prefer were not fully revealed to the world. The public life is built on half-truths, and it is natural for anyone, especially a politician, to try to present himself in the best light. . . . But with Clinton, the tension between reality and image, between what he is and what he wants to be, is so relentless that over the years it became habitual for him to withhold information -- justifiably or not."

As the past several years teach, Clinton's moral compass points in several directions simultaneously. Language functions as both shield and sword, defensive and offensive weapons, as he tries to protect himself politically and personally. The impeachment imbroglio, however, brought into broad public view the secrecy and hypocrisy that observers of Clinton have known about since his years as governor of Arkansas.

The lingering question is: Why does Bill Clinton play this elaborate game of hide-and-seek, when he's aware the contemporary political and media climate has few reservations about revelations? Especially with an aggressive Independent Counsel investigation in process and before the settlement of the sexual harassment suit of Paula Jones against him, conducting the relationship with Monica Lewinsky is beyond reckless abandon. Despite the president's assertions that his privacy had been violated with disclosures of their misadventures, he had previously denied any unbecoming conduct and directed his staff and cabinet to support him. The so-called private matter had, in actuality, become public business when government workers began devoting their tax-paid time to vigorous defense of a lie.

Despite over a year of attention devoted to every aspect of this unseemly tale, Clinton stands impeached by the House of Representatives but roundly approved for his work as president in public opinion surveys. Why the continued backing amid such controversy? In part, he's the beneficiary of a robust economy and a post-Cold War world that is generally peaceful from an American perspective. In addition, people recognize his intelligence, mastery of domestic policy, willingness to work, empathy, and heroic resilience. It's not so much a matter of condoning misbehavior and efforts to cover it up as discriminating among everything that's known about Clinton and basing a judgment on what matters the most. Character traits co-exist with character flaws.

At a time that puts a premium on personality and performance to gain public attention, Clinton in a curious way has become the nation's Celebrity-in-Chief. Soap-opera scandals are nothing new to celebrities in other realms, with value judgments about private affairs of less concern than overall appeal. As long as Americans applaud the country's prosperity and basic direction, the president's combined efforts of staying the course and surviving in office offer a real-life drama with macabre fascination. All the late-night television jokes about the White House as the new set for a remake of the movie Animal House serve as comic relief -- but also reinforce the notion of a president as simply a contemporary celebrity.

Mark Twain once observed, "Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody." Prominence and power notwithstanding, presidents are really no different from anyone else. Now, however, they have to cope with the probable disclosure of any fact or rumor that suggests "a dark side" or murky motive. Campaign consultants regularly ask White House hopefuls, "Are you ready to have everything you've ever done appear on the front page of The Washington Post and The New York Times?"

Moreover, as recent revelations about Jefferson and Kennedy make clear, even dead presidents can't rest in peace. Shortly after genetic testing indicated that Jefferson likely fathered at least one child with a slave woman, stories appeared that Washington might have done likewise. To return to the time when Parson Weems mythologized Washington with invented stories about a cherry tree and never telling a lie serves neither history nor truth. But the opposite approach we see today emphasizes human failings in sensational, tabloid manner. A president's clay feet can trip us up in arriving at a balanced and comprehensive view of individual figures and the institution itself. Stressing the negative obscures the whole person and provokes cynicism about the office.

Harry Truman's view of the president as "two people" -- the nation's leader and an imperfect person -- showed uncommon common sense. In an interview after leaving the White House, he explained: "When you get to be president, there are all those things, the honors, the 21-gun salutes, all those things, you have to remember it isn't for you. It's for the presidency, and you've got to keep yourself separate from that in your mind. If you can't keep the two separate, yourself and the presidency, you're in all kinds of trouble."

Truman is right from the perspective of a president. But keeping those two aspects separate is impossible for citizens because the human dimension remains a critical factor in what judgments we make about the residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House by it nature combines the highest elected official's public work and private life in a single structure that functions as office, ceremonial place, residence and national symbol. Understanding any president demands a sense of proportion and measured scrutiny that acknowledges human complexity and mystery -- and how they dance together.

Robert Schmuhl chairs the Department of American Studies and directs the new Program in Journalism, Ethics & Democracy at Notre Dame. His collection of essays, Indecent Liberties, will be published this summer by Notre Dame Press.