AMERICA'S PRESIDENTS

Depression, incompetence, hidden illnesses, idiotic political decisions, assassination attempts, and sex scandals are among the dark secrets unearthed in this compendium of presidential lore.

California State University historian Henig meanders through thematically arranged biographical anecdotes about presidential quirks and failings. Topics include the effects of personal tragedies (the death of his son turned Calvin Coolidge from an engaged leader into a listless recluse); deceptive image-making (like Edith Wilson’s cover-up of husband Woodrow’s debilitating stroke and Franklin Roosevelt’s charade of mobility after his legs were paralyzed by polio); gross policy miscalculations (James Polk imagined that war with Mexico would help unify the United States, but it sowed the seeds of the Civil War); and the relentless sexual appetites of the cold, brusque John Kennedy and the schmoozy, smarmy Bill Clinton. Appearing in many categories of dysfunction is Lyndon Johnson, who is revealed here to be a bullying boss, a liar and strategic bungler, and a deeply perverted man (he had a fetish for displaying his penis, which he dubbed Jumbo, in many inappropriate contexts). Henig’s bite-size essays reveal the banal flaws of great men but also humanize them—Washington, he notes, became president in part because he was deep in debt and needed a steady paycheck. The colorful profiles reveal character in vivid, elegant prose, whether depicting Warren G. Harding’s hapless self-loathing (“he had no shame revealing how he felt: ‘I am not fit for this office and should never have been here’”) or Teddy Roosevelt’s unstoppable self-promotion. (“Amidst gasps of horror and cries of ‘Oh no! Oh no!’ Roosevelt unbuttoned his vest and revealed his bloodstained shirt,” he writes of an incident in which Roosevelt went ahead with a scheduled speech minutes after being shot by a madman.) Full of surprising revelations—conservative icon Ronald Reagan tried to join the Communist Party in 1938, but they rebuffed him—the result is a stimulating reference book for history buffs and casual readers alike.

A trove of entertaining stories about the drama, pratfalls, and sheer weirdness of presidents.