America in Search of Itself: The Making of the President, 1956-1980

by Theodore H. White

Book Overview

The current debate on the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a matter of considerable significance for East-West relations and international security, is examined by thirteen authors selected from the international community for their expertise. In the introduction, the three editors from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute highlight the complexities of the problems involved and identify possible solutions. Ambassadors Gerard Smith and...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060390077
• ISBN13: 9780060390075
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 465 Pages
• Weight: 1.77 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Twilight Of Teddy White

For an all-too-brief period of time - although it stretched 20 years - Theodore H. White told us the story of Presidential campaigns as bemused observer and one who cut slack to every politician seeking the highest office in the world. He viewed them as neutrally as he possibly could, portraying them as responders to events and real human beings. It is a writing that is missed. Jules Witcover and Jack Germond tried to fill that void but their anti-Republican and particularly anti-conservative bias is clear for all to see. White mostly avoided that and this book serves as a fine epitaph for his reporting career. In his prior books concerning the 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1972 elections, White focused primarily on that particular year's events. The 1968 book, in particular, was extremely well done as White chronicled a month-by-month journal of the race. (I have not read either the 1960 or 1972 versions, but the 1964 version I reviewed a number of years ago). This book starts with some anecdotes from the 1956 campaign that White astutely observed 'disturbed America les than any election since 1924,' referring to the low voter turnout. He touches briefly on some prior campaigns, but he then tells the big issue of the 1980 election. And despite the anachronistic rumblings of some Democrats, it was NOT the issue of the hostages in Iran (an issue that is barely covered at all by White) but something White chose to call 'The Great Inflation.' White traced the problems of the late 1970s economy back to LBJ's attempts to conceal the cost of the Vietnam War from America. (It might do some well to read this today since we are virtually re-living the 1970s, and the only REAL question remaining at this point is whether Obama is Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan in terms of the economic performance under his watch). The story of the 1980 election is told, the parameters of the characters defined. Seven Republicans and three Democrats (including President Jimmy Carter) seeking the most powerful office in the world. And we might well view White as a visionary because his tome reflected the fact that the Big Government era of FDR and LBJ was long gone and replaced by Reagan conservatism, a dominant political force until 2006. (Whether that has been turned or is in dormancy phase at present remains to be seen). Though at the time nobody could know the extent to which Reaganism would dominate the political landscape, it is clear that White saw the possibility and foretold the Democratic disasters of both 1984 and 1988 with his relevant points about quota delegates and the minority control of entire blocs of delegates, a shift from the days of Richard Daley. One of the lower moments in the book came with a two-page discussion of the Religious Right's attempts to control the party platform. It would have done White well simply to have stated (as he did) that the religious right delegates were committed to a moralist cause (keeping in mind that moralism was the basis of

A Classic's Last Round

Where is this generation's Theodore H. White? Where is the person who can write the history of a fresh presidential election cycle without alienating nearly half those who care enough to read it? Where is the scribe who can lead an anxious electorate back to its golden mean, to contemplate dispassionately on lessons learned, rather than battles lost and won? There's been a huge hole in the writing of contemporaneous political history since White's heyday, when his four "Making Of The President" books taking in the quadrennial election years 1960 through 1972 could be found on middle-class bookshelves across America without giving away the political leanings of the homeowner. But the hole is not quite as wide as I once thought, after discovering this book in the library. Of a piece with the "Making Of" series, the title suggests a condensing of 24 years in presidential politics, but really focuses on three elections White didn't cover in his previous histories, in brief those of 1956 and 1976, then, in greater detail, that of 1980. So what you really get here is a "Making Of The President 1980" with some opening observations on other campaigns. The book doesn't really tie up the whole of White's reporting with a "here's-what-I-learned" bow, and in that way the title's misleading, though he does offer some wisdom near the end accumulated from his experiences. One that sticks out: "Critical elections are not fixed in history by election night returns; they depend on what the victor does with his victory." It was still an open question in early 1982, when this book was published, what Ronald Reagan would do with his 1980 victory. It was a bad spring for the economy, with high unemployment, a nasty recession, and popular unrest at home and abroad over the nuclear buildup Reagan was championing. But one gets a sense of White's sympathies being with Reagan all the same. He may not have understood conservatives, and writes of the anti-abortion movement particularly with deep scorn, but you sense reading White's observations about the 1970s and the election of Jimmy Carter that White's faith in liberalism, so clear in his "Making Of The President 1960" hagiography of John F. Kennedy, had not just been challenged but routed by the failure of the Great Society, the war in Vietnam, and the culture of complaint that became rooted around the Democratic party. "They had set out to free everyone and had created a nation of dependents instead," White writes. Add to that a brittle president (Jimmy Carter) unable to make tough, effective decisions, and you have a clear recipe for change. It wasn't that White was a liberal or a conservative, or even a moderate. It was that he was able to take in all political viewpoints, weigh their respective merits and minuses, and offer in the end something deep and penetrating about what was going on with the nation at the time of any particular election. He had a deep vocabulary, an ear for the telling quote, an eye for v

Solid Political Analysis

Journalist Theodore H. White (1915-1986) covered U.S. Presidential elections for more than a quarter of a century. Here in his final book he examines the political changes from 1956-1980, then finishes with a concise look at the 1980 campaign between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. White begins with a lengthy examination of the major changes in the U.S. during the quarter century from 1956-1980. He seems almost depressed by national problems such as energy dependency, urban crime, inflation and affirmative action. Readers see how TV sound bites have replaced political dialog, and how political conventions changed from nominating bodies to rubber stamps. The book's second half covers the 1980 election campaign between Carter, Reagan, and third-party candidate John Anderson. The author offers substantial analysis in a campaign that was probably a foregone conclusion. With Carter weakened by inflation, gas lines, hostages in Iran, and a primary challenge from Ted Kennedy, all Reagan had to do was convince people he wasn't an extremist. Theodore H. White was a master political journalist, and author of the superb "Making of the President" series from 1960-1972. His final book was also very good, but probably not quite up to the standards of his best earlier writings.

Next to 1960, the best one.

Theodore White's "Making of the President -- 1960" is obviously his best book and the one that put him on the map, but this book is his second best, and my personal favorite. It's hard to get, but if you can get a copy used, it's worth the read.White spends the first half of the book detailing the major changes in the political landscape from 1956-1980. Much of it is nothing new to students of history, but it is interesting nonetheless because it is coming from an insider. Some major changes he identifies are the death of political conventions as anything meaningful, the breaking up of traditional ethnic political alliances, and the increasing role of media in chosing a President. A typical Cold War centrist liberal, White laments the rise of "radical" McGovern-type liberalism (especially affirmative action), as well as the anti-government conservatism of Ronald Reagan. He sees these forces as tearing the nation apart, and wishes that the 1950s and 1960s "liberal concensus" was still the dominant political ideology.The second half of the book is the tale of the 1980 Reagan/Carter/Anderson election. It is the typical T.H. White narrative. He gets insider information from the major campaign players, and constructs a classic narrative of strong-willed men vying for the ultimate prize. In White's books, the hero is always the victor and the villian is always the loser, but the tale is always very exciting. If you enjoyed "MOTP -- 1960", you'll enjoy this one as well.

A superb look back at recent American political campaigns

Theodore H. White (1915-1986), who was once described by TIME magazine as the "godfather of modern political reporting", spent some twenty years (1960-1980) covering presidential politics. After each campaign White would write a book about his adventures and observations among the candidates and events he covered. This series of books - the "Making of the President" series, earned White a Pulitzer Prize and national fame as a leading commentator on national politics. During these years White came to know, or at least meet, most of the great politicians of the era - from President Eisenhower to the Kennedy brothers (whom he idolized, to great criticism from younger journalists and historians), to big-city bosses and Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. During these years White gradually moved from being a committed liberal Democrat to a more conservative (although not necessarily pro-Reagan or pro-Republican) stance. In "America In Search of Itself" White attempts to sum up what he discovered during these years not only about our political system and the politicians who run it but about the American people as well. In some ways this is a pessimistic book about the decline of American power and economic strength from the "Happy Days" of the 1950's to the deep recessions and job layoffs of the late 1970's. White often mourns the passing of the stability and self-confidence that he thought existed in the Eisenhower Fifties and the Kennedy Presidency. Of course, White had no way of knowing that America would recover its power and economic strength in the eighties and nineties, so in this sense the book's pessimism may seem dated to some readers. However, White (as always) also offers a brilliant description of how television completely changed American politics, and of how the breakup of the big-city Democratic "machines" (however corrupt they may have been) paved the way for the eventual breakup of the Democratic Party in the late seventies and eighties, (until a guy named Bill Clinton pulled it together again). White writes eloquently of the long-ago 1956 presidential campaign, when our political system seemed much simpler and more exciting, if also less fair to women and racial minorities. White writes that from 1956 to 1980 the control of our political system was taken out of the hands of the "professional politicians" (the big-city mayors, Governors, and Congressmen) and placed in the hands of advertising executives who could make effective TV Commercials, and crusading idealists (feminists, environmentalists, pro-and-anti abortionists, etc.) who came to dominate the primaries which now choose the presidential candidates of both parties. The final section of the book is a description of the 1980 presidential campaign between Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Jimmy Carter. As always, White's observations about this campaign are usually on-target and eloquent, if also more harsh and negative than his earlier "Making of the President" books. The imp