Joseph C. Goulden, a veteran
journalist and author of Korea: The Untold Story of the War and Truth Is the
First Casualty, on the Tonkin resolution, offers a good review in the
Washington Times of Michael Beschloss’ Presidents Of War.
A distinguished historian
who has written 10 outstanding books perhaps can be excused for a single
outrageous sentence that leaves a reader shaking his head in disbelief.
Michael
Beschloss makes just such a misstep in his otherwise magnificent
account of how American presidents went to war over the centuries. He writes
that the way the nation entered World War II “did so much to elevate
[President] Roosevelt’s
standing that it increased the temptation for later Presidents to elevate their
reputation by seeking foreign conflict.”
Pardon my dissenting blink.
As Washington correspondent for The Philadelphia Inquirer 1967-68, I witnessed
Lyndon Johnson’s open agony on a daily basis as he fought a war that
essentially destroyed his presidency. And I thought of the frustrations endured
by President Truman
by waging the Korean conflict into which he was abruptly thrust. Neither man
felt that war “elevated” their reputations, to be sure.
That quibble aside, Mr.
Beschloss offers fascinating insight about how presidents have dealt
with what is surely their most demanding responsibility: That of asking
Congress to put the nation into war.
The men who created the
United States wisely decided that such a decision should not be left to the
president alone. Memories of European wars commenced by unrestricted monarchs
haunted the Founding Fathers. In their view, “war would be a last resort under
the political system they had invented.”
You can read the rest of the
review via the below link:
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