Exploring minor aspects of past presidents' lives, such as why Lyndon B. Johnson owned an amphibious car, helps shed light on their characters and leadership styles, Michael Beschloss, a historian and this year's Dorsett Lecturer, said at his talk Thursday afternoon in Cook auditorium.
Beschloss specializes in U.S. presidential history and has authored a number of books about American presidents.
Johnson kept the amphibious car to test how loyal his new employees were, Beschloss said, by taking them for a drive that, surprisingly, ended in the Lyndon B. Johnson Lake. When the unsuspecting passenger, about to plummet into the lake, thought his life was at stake, Johnson could see whether his new staff member valued his own safety over the safety of the president.
"You don't understand these people until you see them in full, in ways that are trivial," he said.
Beschloss said he looks for such trivialities in order to gain a more complete understanding of the presidents he studies. He said that one of the "occupational hazards" of presidential scholarship is that "you begin to obsess yourself with how the men operate."
These obsessions result in a fuller understanding of a president's legacy, which must be studied and reassessed for many years after the president has left office, according to Beschloss.
"As strongly as we may feel currently we have to remember that later we might feel differently," he said. "Almost always, the president looks different to a later generation, especially historians, than he did at the time."
To support his theory, Beschloss cited many past presidents' decisions, such as Harry Truman's stance on the Korean War, that were opposed at the time but may have ultimately proven beneficial.
The presidents who make these decisions sacrifice their own approval ratings in order to do what is best for their country, Beschloss said. Historians are able to give an accurate assessment of each president "when [people] know how the story turned out without the lens of current politics," he added.
The idea that the president must value his country more than his career follows the example set first by George Washington, Beschloss said.
"Everything he did as president was setting a precedent for moral leadership for the rest," he said.
Washington's drop in approval came after he agreed to a treaty with England in order to avoid going to war when America was too weak to fight, and the unhappiness he experienced from falling out of favor with the American public caused his premature death, his wife Martha said at the time, Beschloss said.
Similarly, he added, John F. Kennedy passed the Civil Rights Act, which resulted in a decline in his approval in the South. The drop led to his fateful campaign trip to Texas, where he was assassinated.
President George W. Bush cannot fully be assessed as a president until the War on Terror is proven to be successful or not, according to Beschloss.
"When you look at moral leadership you always have to weigh ends versus means," he said.
The Dorsett Fellowship was founded by Burt Dorsett '53 and his wife Trix, who made the donation for the fellowship because Burt's business career led him to see "the necessity of integrating ethics into every aspect of professional life," Aine Donovan, executive director of the Ethics Institute, said.
The Ethics Institute has planned the Dorsett Lecturer events since the inception of the Dorsett Fellowship in 2004, according to Donovan.
This year, the institute selected the topic of Presidential Leadership in light of the upcoming election.
