PRESIDENTS AT WAR

Political historian Gillon considers the effects of World War II on a generation of presidents.

It was “the defining event of their lives”: When the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor, seven future presidents—Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush—resolved to take part in some way or another. Eisenhower was a career soldier who had never commanded a unit in combat: It was his cheerful network building, coupled with a sharply analytical mind, that brought him to the forefront as a war planner and leader. Nixon, Eisenhower’s vice president, was as ever cynical: He knew that military service would be a ticket to a political future and got a rear-echelon assignment in the Navy. More daring but with the same recognition of political utility, JFK famously commanded a PT boat, becoming a decorated war hero—though, Gillon writes, JFK almost torpedoed his own career because of an affair with a woman suspected of being a Nazi spy. LBJ and Bush took to the skies, the former as an analyst, the second as a fighter pilot, also much decorated. (Gillon suggests that Johnson received an undeserved Silver Star at Douglas MacArthur’s bequest “to consummate their agreement that Johnson would be his advocate” in Congress.) Ford trained pilots on the ground in physical education. Reagan didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to give up a shot at being a movie star—and when it was clear that he was just a B-list actor with a safe commission that didn’t take him beyond California, he turned to politics. World War II shaped the political outlook of all these presidents, from Nixon’s endless grievances to JFK’s careful strategizing (and a few dirty tricks) and “bland good guy” Reagan’s hail-fellow-well-met approach to politics.

War is hell—but also, this history shows, a good way to get elected.