Affairs of State

A close-up look at the intimate relationships and politics of postwar American presidential couples explores the changing roles of America's political leaders and shares revealing anecdotes about ten different presidents and their wives. 17,500 first printing. Tour.

This overview of post-WWII U.S. presidential couples by Troy, a history teacher at Canada's McGill University, is deeply engrossing. He claims the book "is about image... insofar as the First Couples have sought to fulfill America's unrealistic standards for the presidency," and about substance as "a story of increasing First Lady involvement in politics, and voters' rejection of that involvement." According to Troy, the wives of presidents who followed Eleanor Roosevelt were scrutinized as half of a political partnership and expected to develop an appropriate public persona. Drawing on extensive research, Troy examines each partnership and evaluates whether the marriage helped the presidency. Truman's emotional dependence on Bess, who disliked politics, distracted him, while Mamie Eisenhower and Barbara Bush filled supportive roles. According to Troy, the presidencies of Ford, Carter and Clinton were impacted negatively by the public's perception of their wives as wielding too much power. In his otherwise absorbing history, the author's advice for first couples, that wives be deferential, is reminiscent of 1950s' women's magazines. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Emphasizing the increasingly complex political and cultural role of the First Lady, Troy (History/McGill Univ.; See How They Ran, 1991) takes an unusual look at the travails of ten modern presidential couples, from the Trumans to the Clintons. While First Ladies could be popular or unpopular, and could always exert an influence on policy (most dramatically in the case of Woodrow Wilson's wife, Edith, after Wilson's stroke in 1919), Troy argues, only recently has the concept of the ``First Couple'' emerged, in which the role of the president's wife helps define the direction and success of her husband's administration. Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower, and Jackie Kennedy were high-profile women whose popularity contributed to their husbands' electoral successes, but in contrast to more recent First Ladies, they didn't play a direct role in formulating policy, Troy points out. The Eisenhowers' strong marriage, for instance, helped Ike maintain high approval ratings throughout his two administrations. Jackie Kennedy, with her enormous popularity and glamour, self-consciously created a Kennedy myth that concealed the president's marital infidelities and other sordid truths for years. As the role of women changed in society in recent decades, so did that of the First Lady; Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford were activist First Ladies who became lightning rods for criticism of their husbands; the Carters and Reagans were ``co-presidents,'' with the First Lady having a direct impact on important aspects of policy. The Clintons represent the culmination of this trend: Hillary Rodham Clinton was put in charge of a major policy initiative, and her activities became a principal headache for her husband. Her unpopularity demonstrated the popular confusion and discomfort over the First Lady's evolution from simply the president's wife to a political partner. Full of surprising and fascinating anecdotes, this is an absorbing look at an often-overlooked aspect of the modern presidency. (16 pages b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Troy (See How They Ran: The Changing Role of the Presidential Candidate, LJ 11/1/91) presents the first study of the political relationship of presidential couples, although most of his thought-provoking, readable book is focused on examining the paradoxes and no-win situation of the First Lady. Since Eleanor Roosevelt, the role of the president's wife has expanded and, at times, has been distorted by a media that invades the lives of the presidential family and creates unrealistic expectations of what the First Lady (perhaps First Gentleman, one day) can do. Through narratives of all the couples after FDR, Troy presents a convincing case that the public wants the First Lady to symbolize traditional family values and not share power through a co-presidency. The "who elected you?" mantra haunted Betty Ford, Rosalyn Carter, and Nancy Reagan and now flails at Hillary Clinton for being too ambitious. A fine selection for academic and most public libraries.?Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Township Lib., King of Prussia, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

During the past 50 years, the public role of the First Lady has expanded enormously. The wife of the president is now expected to campaign and lobby vigorously, to handle an often unsympathetic and highly critical media effectively, and to serve as a policy advisor to her husband. Due to the increasing prominence of political spouses, the concept of the presidential couple emerged. From Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt to Bill and Hillary Clinton, Troy has analyzed the evolution of the presidential couple as both an idea and a reality. In addition, the author also examines the primarily negative public reaction generated by the contemporary notion of a presidential partnership. A revealing historical and sociological overview of the personal and political marriages of the past 11 presidential couples. Margaret Flanagan