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Richard E. NeustadtPresidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1960A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 12-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Later Reflections”
Chapter 12 Summary: “A Matter of Detail”
Chapter 12 discusses the presidency of Ronald Reagan, describing it as “a compelling commentary” on Neustadt’s argument in four ways. He treats the first three together, then the fourth separately, throughout the chapter.
First, Neustadt describes Reagan as the last “Roosevelt Democrat” who will be president. He means this literally because Reagan voted for Roosevelt and became Republican in the 1950s. Second, he notes Reagan’s background as an actor. Third, he describes Reagan as the least intellectually curious and interested in the details of affairs of any president since the 1920s, and also the most committed to his ideas regardless of evidence or events since Woodrow Wilson.
Finally, Neustadt uses the Iran-Contra affair as a medium for discussing the magnification of risk that the prior factors created in the presidency, both in terms of Reagan’s methods and his policy aims. Neustadt’s distaste for Reagan is undeniable when he uses phrases such as “ignorance with insistence” to describe his presidency (270). The point is primarily made by showing in some detail how little President Reagan knew about the details of the Iran-Contra scandal and suggesting that knowing more would have helped him head off the problems it created.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Two Cases of Self-Help”
In the final chapter of the book Neustadt compares information gained about Eisenhower’s handling of the 1954 decisions whether to aid the French in Vietnam with Kennedy’s handling of the Bay of Pigs missile crisis. He regards both as positive examples of using present choices to conserve or strengthen power resources. The new information improves his opinion of Eisenhower’s ability to make decisions of the type recommended in the book considerably, while his opinion of Kennedy remains similar.
Other points discussed in the chapter include Reagan’s handling of the Iran-Contra affair. In contrast to Eisenhower, Neustadt’s view of Reagan seems to remain particularly low.
The chapter also provides an opportunity for Neustadt to provide somewhat more subjective commentary on what a president should be. In general, he states that he prefers “Roosevelts” over “Reagans,” meaning he believes skepticism and curiosity serve a president well.
Apparently writing just before the end of the Cold War, Neustadt notes that its height may seem a simpler time. Yet he suggests that the reduced chance of nuclear annihilation, and the difficulty of trusting an individual with all the power the president has in that regard, is a “fair exchange.”
Chapters 12-13 Analysis
Aside from some brief commentary at the very end of the book, these two chapters do not provide the same closure that Chapter 8 provided to the 1960 edition. The chapters seem, instead, to wrestle with the phenomenon that was the Reagan presidency.
Neustadt plainly does not think Reagan was a particularly successful president. However, he seems to find in Reagan a deteriorating success over time that illustrates the core point of both editions—that a president should focus intently on conserving and increasing his personal power with every choice.
These chapters suggest that Reagan squandered his power because he lacked curiosity and because he placed excessive trust in those to whom he delegated decisions. Neustadt seems to imply some hope that learning from the two examples drawn from Eisenhower and Kennedy would allow a Reagan-style president to be more successful.
Finally, it seems that Neustadt may have some inkling that changes in media will have significant effects on the presidency by the 21st century. Of course, he could not foresee the rise of the internet, which some would say has transformed the presidency beyond comparison with many of the 20th century circumstances and presidents examined in this book. Considering Twitter’s importance to Donald Trump’s presidency, for example, could support such a view.
However, the basic analysis Neustadt offers in this book continues to speak to the president’s fundamental task of governing effectively. Operating under the same constitutional structure, the president still requires support in Congress, some degree of public popularity, and other facts Neustadt considers when concluding that the president’s powers confer only some advantage in gaining the influence needed to achieve policy goals. In that sense, the book’s core argument may be almost timeless.
