Abstract
In this chapter I will examine the mechanics of the actual transition from the perspective of the leaving administration. It was often the case in the nineteenth century between the time that the framers’ generation passed and the governing of the United States became more of a federal responsibility that the incoming and outgoing presidents rarely or never met. For example, the one and only time that President Buchanan met Abraham Lincoln was on the day of the inauguration. In fact, in the nineteenth century many of the presidents, especially from the other party, hardly knew one another. Furthermore, in the nineteenth century there was precious little contact between the outgoing and incoming administrations both because of the difficulty of communications and the limited need for coordination. In addition, prior to the ratification of the 20th Amendment (shortening the transition) the outgoing administration had some fairly consequential responsibilities and the means to carry them out.
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Notes
Quoted in Harry S. Truman and Robert H. Ferrell, Off the Record: The Private Papers Of Harry S. Truman, 1st edn (Harper & Row, 1980), p. 270.
The gravest failure on the part of Eisenhower during the campaign from Truman’s perspective was Eisenhower’s failure to disavow Senator Joseph McCarthy’s charges that General George Marshall, friend of Truman and mentor of Eisenhower, was soft on Communism. Truman saw that reluctance to criticize McCarthy as an indication of a lack of courage and loyalty on the part of Eisenhower. Eisenhower, himself, later admitted that he regretted the decision. For general background on the dynamics of the Truman–Eisenhower transitions, see Richard E. Neustadt, Notes on the White House Staff Under Truman. Papers of Richard E. Neustadt, Box One, Truman Presidential Library, 1953.
John R. Steelman, Oral History. Eisenhower Administration Project, Oral History Research Office, Columbia University, 1968.
David McCullough, Truman (Simon & Schuster, 1993).
Steve Neal, Harry and Ike: The Partnership That Remade the Postwar World (Scribners Book Company, 2002).
and Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman, 1st edn (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2005).
William O. Wagnon Jr., “John Roy Steelman: Native Son to Presidential Advisor,” The Arkansas Historical Quarterly 27 (3) (1968): 205–225.
Walter Isaacson, Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made with a New Int. [S.l.] (Simon & Schuster, 2013).
For a history of the establishment of storage and disposition of presidential papers, see Nancy Kegan Smith and Gary M. Stern, “A Historical Review of Access to Records in Presidential Libraries,” The Public Historian 28 (3) (2006): 79–116.
See R. Bruce Craig, “Presidential Libraries and Museums: Opportunities for Genuine Reform,” The Public Historian 28 (4) (2006): 75–84.
Raymond H. Geselbracht, “Creating the Harry S. Truman Library: The First Fifty Years,” The Public Historian 28 (3) (2006): 37–78.
See Larry J. Hackman, “Toward Better Policies and Practices for Presidential Libraries,” The Public Historian 28 (3) (2006): 165–184. The identity of Donors to the Foundation are not required to be made public nor are there limits on donations. It should be noted that the Clinton Foundation is responsible for a wide range of charitable activities.
James S. Bowman, “State and Federal Executive Transitions: Sources and Resources,” Public Productivity Review 12 (1) (1988): 107–116.
See Trumbull Higgins, Perfect Failure, 2nd edn (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1989). Dulles was fired shortly thereafter.
See Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier and President. New edition (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 575. By the same token and less famously Eisenhower also warned that public policy could become dominated by a “scientific technological elite.”
See Chester L. Cooper, “The CIA and Decision-Making,” Foreign Affairs 50 (2) (1972): 223–236.
Bruce Buchanan, The Presidential Experience (Prentice-Hall, 1978).
James N. Schubert, “Age and Active-Passive Leadership Style,” The American Political Science Review 82 (3) (1988): 763–772.
Quoted in Paolo E. Coletta, The Presidency of William Howard Taft (Lawrence KS: The University Press of Kansas, 1973), p. 253
Kenneth R. Crispell and Carlos Gomez, Hidden Illness in the White House, 1st edn (Duke University Press Books, 1989).
Robert E. Gilbert, The Mortal Presidency: Illness and Anguish in the White House, 2nd edn (Fordham University Press, 1998).
See Robert E. Gilbert, The Tormented President: Calvin Coolidge, Death, and Clinical Depression. (Praeger, 2003).
Rose McDermott, Presidential Leadership, Illness, and Decision Making, 1st edn (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Quoted in Conrad Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (Perseus Books Group, 2005), p. 125.
During the 1992 campaign, Bush had been widely criticized for failing to intervene in support of civilians at risk in Kurdistan, Kosovo, Beirut, and Somalia. See Robert C. DiPrizio, Armed Humanitarians: U.S. Interventions from Northern Iraq to Kosovo (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), p. 50.
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© 2014 Daniel P. Franklin
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Franklin, D.P. (2014). Leaving Presidents and the Mechanics of Transition. In: Pitiful Giants. The Evolving American Presidency Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137408242_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137408242_6
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