First Friends

May 3, 2021
Ginsberg, a corporate executive and former Clinton administration official, debuts with an entertaining group portrait of nine U.S. presidents and their best friends. All of these friendships are marked by “deep, abiding affection between the two individuals,” according to Ginsberg, who details how some changed policies and bolstered careers, while others damaged reputations. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson’s friendship lasted more than 50 years and produced more than 1,250 letters. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s campaign biography of Franklin Pierce helped his friend win the presidency, but led to fierce criticism from the author’s “abolitionist peer group.” Edward House was Woodrow Wilson’s closest adviser and the architect of his foreign policy, until the two men had a falling out over the terms of the Paris Peace conference (First Lady Edith Wilson’s dislike of House didn’t help matters). Margaret “Daisy” Suckley didn’t advise Franklin Roosevelt, but served as his confidante and archivist, while Cuban-American banker Charles Gregory “Bebe” Rebozo got branded as Richard Nixon’s “bagman” during the Watergate scandal. Ginsberg’s succinct and lucid profiles are buoyed by colorful insider details, including Vernon Jordan’s joke to Bill Clinton about why he refused to take golf lessons (“I’m just trying to destroy one more stereotype about blacks, that we’re all great athletes”). Readers will delight in this intriguing look at the human side of the presidency.

June 1, 2021
A Clinton administration insider delivers a fruitful survey of the roles that close friends have played throughout presidential history. Ginsberg comes to his subject by way of a long-ago spell of volunteering for the presidential campaign of Gary Hart, who had one well-known confidant in actor Warren Beatty and a lesser-known one in old friend and chief of staff Billy Shore, who "seemed to be Hart's alter ego, someone with the right combination of intensity yet inner calm to keep an often pensive candidate switched on." So it is across the span of presidencies: Thomas Jefferson had his Billy Shore in fellow Virginian James Madison, who himself would become president but who contented himself in remaining in Jefferson's shadow even as he made substantial contributions to the Constitution. Woodrow Wilson had his "First Friend," as Ginsberg dubs the occupant of that unofficial but influential role, in a diminutive Texan named Edward Mandell House, whose views neatly aligned with Wilson's in most regards and who hand-picked many of the players in the Wilson administration. So it was with Vernon Jordan, Bill Clinton's closest friend, who served numerous functions, from helping select staff members to warding off a post-Lewinsky affair threat of divorce on the part of the first lady. Perhaps most affecting in this series of portraits is, curiously enough, Richard Nixon's friendship with Bebe Rebozo, a Cuban exile and influential banker who was seemingly glad to play "a subservient role" but who also knew how to deal with Nixon's dark moods. Ginsberg does nothing to improve Nixon's reputation as he recounts how the president eventually brought the straight-arrow Rebozo into the criminal conspiracy that ended his tenure in the White House--with Rebozo urging Nixon not to resign until the very end. There's no real thesis in Ginsberg's capably spun story, but there are plentiful insights. A fresh, well-written take on the lives of our presidents.

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Starred review from June 1, 2021
For a President, having friends teems with difficulties. Are they friendly because they really do love you, or are they merely after proximity to perceived presidential power? Worse yet, are they trying to turn their relationship with the nation's leader into personal gain? Some presidents have nevertheless had very striking friendships over their lives, people they could rely on and who sometimes conveyed uncomfortable truths. John Kennedy had David Ormsby-Gore, a Briton he met through his sister Kathleen and who helped shepherd him through the Cuban missile crisis. From his early days in Springfield, Abraham Lincoln held high regard for merchant Joshua Speed even though they disagreed on the issue of slavery. Franklin Delano Roosevelt bonded with Daisy Suckley, a distant cousin who lived near his Hyde Park estate and went on to become a chief archivist of his papers. Franklin Pierce formed a lifelong bond with a fellow New Englander, the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, who stoutly defended Pierce from his many vituperative critics. Edward Mandell House became Woodrow Wilson's personal diplomat. Out of these liaisons and more, Ginsberg has crafted an insightful series of biographies, showing just how these friendships thrived and survived and were consequential for the nation's history. Includes bibliography.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.