Michael Duffy "The Presidents Club" (May 17, 2012) скачать в хорошем качестве

Michael Duffy "The Presidents Club" (May 17, 2012)

In what was the final oration in the winter/spring 2012 program series, The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, welcomed guest speaker Michael Duffy. The program was presented by the National Archives and Records Administration with support from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation. Michael Duffy is a journalist and author, serving as Washington Bureau Chief and Executive Editor of TIME Magazine. He is the co-author of three books, “Marching in Place: the Status Quo Presidency of George Bush”, “The Preacher and The Presidents: Billy Graham in The White House“, and “The Presidents Club: Inside the World‘s Most Exclusive Fraternity”. He has twice been awarded the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting, receiving the honor in 1994 for Distinguished Writing on the Presidency and in 2005 for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense. Duffy visited the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum to discuss his latest achievement, “The Presidents Club”. The book has appeared on the New York Times Best Seller List since its release. Duffy has appeared on C-SPAN and was the feature cover story of the April 23, 2012 issue of TIME. “The Presidents Club” is the term used for what Duffy describes as a fraternity with roots in events over 70 years ago. In 1946 during President Harry Truman’s first week in office he found himself with an immediate problem of how to feed over 100 million starving Europeans. With no one surrounding him in Washington D.C. with experience on how to do so, he began corresponding via mail with former President Herbert Hoover. Hoover had faced a similar problem feeding hungry Europeans in the years following World War I. Due to a strong distrust between the two men, a four week long “dance” on whether or not to collaborate ensued. Eventually though, Hoover came to Truman’s side. Hoover obliged President Truman’s request to “hit the road” and six months and 50 countries later got the food from where it was to where it needed to be. The two men became friends over the phone and forged a relationship “against odds that had never really been seen before“. The club was officially formed by Hoover and Truman during the Inauguration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Presidents Club, at first, was a phrase that symbolized the bond between current and former Commander-in-Chief. Not until the Nixon Administration did the club get a clubhouse. President Richard Nixon, so annoyed with former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s requests for workspace in Washington, D.C. appointed a military aid (that military aid turned out to be Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor under President Ford) to find an appropriate building. Eventually the building at 716 Jackson Place in Washington, D.C. became Presidents Club headquarters. With no job description or training to default to in times of question, Duffy supplied numerous accounts in which sitting Presidents either reached out to or were reached out to by a former President. From President Eisenhower’s influence on President Kennedy’s National Security Policy, to President Bill Clinton making late night phone calls to President Nixon, Duffy illustrates how this brotherhood reached across party lines and took care of its members. Duffy’s visit concluded with a question and answer session for audience members where he continued to illustrate the thesis of his novel.