The American Presidency Under Siege (review)

286 Rhetoric & Public Affairs courtly manner. Hassett had functioned in a similar capacity for Truman's predecessor , Franklin D. Roosevelt. But it is not so well known that Truman himself took on some of the general correspondence. Any member of Battery D, 129th Field Artillery Regiment, received special treatment, his letter separated immediately from the generality. And the president liked to dip into the mail. For the most part his replies were careful, as they should have been. For subjects that engaged him the results occasionally were spectacularly different, as D. M. Giangreco and Kathryn Moore show. The range of letters that the editors have addressed is remarkable, and they not merely have divided letters into topical categories but annotated them—this is no simple compilation, one letter after another. Each chapter has a discussion of issues and of the Truman outlooks. The categories are the stands the president made during his nearly eight years in the nation's highest office: the end of World War II, including the Potsdam Conference and the nuclear bombs, Korea, the MacArthur dismissal, as well as such domestic issues as civil rights, the 1948 election, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, the incessant striving of the Marine Corps (Truman became angry over the pushing of Corps points), and the famous review in the Washington Post by the critic Paul Hume of daughter Margaret's singing. The editors conclude with a summary chapter of letters pertaining to the administration's final days in 1952-53. Here is new material, much of it, wondrously edited and well worth reading. It has been in the library all of these years, open and waiting for its editors, and how fortunate it is that two careful scholars have made it available. This handsome volume is introduced by the former Truman staffer George M. Elsey, bringing further distinction to a first-rate book. Robert H. Ferrell Indiana University, Bloomington The American Presidency Under Siege. By Gary L. Rose. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997; pp. XIV + 231. $19.95 paper; $56.00 cloth The American Presidency Under Siege is animated by the author's disappointment with recent presidential politics. Recalling the excitement stirred in his New Haven, Connecticut neighborhood by the Kennedy/Nixon campaign, Rose finds distressing the ennui of contemporary American democracy. "Presidential campaigns are merely a routine exercise in politics rather than a 'coming to power' of a national leader," he laments. "School children appear less enthusiastic about the prospects of a new president, and the American electorate, as expressed by low voter turnout, seems only remotely interested in the outcome of a presidential contest" (xii). Rose attributes this demise of America's civic culture to the failure of the modern presidency , "which has evolved into an institution incapable of creative leadership." But Book Reviews 287 the fault lies not with presidents; rather, the White House is besieged by a plethora of forces loosed by the reaction—or overreaction—to Vietnam and Watergate. AU our recent presidents, regardless of partisan affiliation, character, or charisma, have been "surrounded, bombarded and blocked by a multitude of unfriendly forces including special interest groups, lobbyists, PACs, iron triangles, issue networks, a viperous mass media, an oversized federal bureaucracy and a reactionary Congress" (ai). In most respects, this is a familiar story. Indeed, Rose does not presume to break new scholarly ground as much as diagnose the problem of, and search for solutions to, the beleaguered presidency in a form that is accessible to undergraduates. This is a worthy endeavor, to be sure. And Rose pursues it responsibility, offering students a solid grounding in many aspects of the contemporary executive. But the book runs into some trouble in its examination of the relationship between the party system and the modern presidency. "The modern presidency," Rose argues, "is having difficulty leading the nation due primarily to the decline of political parties as instruments in the governing process" (45). With the decline of parties since the late 1960s, he avers, much has been lost in terms of "stability, teamwork, accountability, and linkage with the American people." So far so good; but Rose goes beyond this defense of the party system, to allege that the decline...