Review: Presidents of War

Harry Truman often cited James Polk among his favorite presidents because Polk "regularly told Congress to go to hell on foreign policy matters," writes Michael Beschloss in Presidents of War. Such bravado would have rattled the Founding Fathers, who intended that the power to declare war rest solely with Congress, rather than the president. However, Polk's stance during the Mexican War reflects the beginning of a transformative shift, one adopted by commanders-in-chief during the modern nuclear age.
 
Presidents of War traces the arc of this fundamental change by focusing on the approaches to war taken by Jefferson, Madison, Polk, Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman and Lyndon Johnson. Beschloss (The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963) expertly assesses and analyzes each leader's motivations, degree of honesty with the public, level of cooperation with Congress and treatment of civil liberties. As for Congress, Beschloss states that relinquishing the power to engage in war resulted in sending "an unintended message to later presidents that when they ask the House and Senate for war, those commanders-in-chief could be duplicitous, too."
 
Beschloss's strongest criticism is reserved for Polk, Truman and Johnson. Polk receives poor marks in the areas of motive, honesty and respect for Congress. According to Beschloss, Polk was derelict in his Constitutional duties by laying the precedent for his successors to push the war-making powers further toward the president. When Truman launched the Korean War, he failed to accurately communicate--to Congress or the public--how costly such a conflict would be. His refusal to ask Congress for advance approval to use military force and his neglect in seeking such backing even after the conflict began "undermined his ability to wage a war in Korea and established a dangerous precedent for future American presidents."
 
Of the three, Lyndon Johnson stands apart for his handling of the Vietnam War. From the beginning, the president suspected Vietnam was not winnable. Thus, not only did LBJ wage war, he did so without conviction: "No earlier Chief Executive... had pushed America to war with such pessimism." Beschloss examines the paradox of a president who had radically advanced progressive causes at home yet sent nearly 40,000 men to their deaths for a cause he knew was lost at the onset.
 
Beschloss's style is to present a complicated dynamic in a well-researched but easy-to-read monograph, and Presidents of War succeeds in this mission. He captures nearly 150 years in a single volume, from Jefferson's attempts to prevent war with France or England up to the Vietnam War, with brief discussion of the Gulf Wars. For each conflict, Beschloss provides an engaging look at how and why the dramatic pendulum swung, and of the leaders who helped change its--and the country's--direction. --William H. Firman Jr., presidential historian and writer
 
Shelf Talker: A thoughtful examination of how eight American presidents approached the prospect of war.
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