When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become president; I’m beginning to believe it. Clarence Darrow
The US presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones. Anthony Burgess
I will seek the presidency with nothing to fall back on but the judgement of the people and with nowhere to go but the White House or home. Bob Dole, 15th May 1996
It’s a lot more fun winning. It hurts to lose. Bob Dole, 6th November 1996
Commander In Thief. Placard in office of Cynthia McKinney, Congresswoman
Harding of Ohio was chosen by a group of men in a smoke-filled room early today as Republican candidate for president. Kirke Simpson, American journalist, news report 12th June 1920
They’re being shadowed basically all the time. Except when they go to the bathroom, and when they sleep at night, when they are in their private residence, even then of course they are watched from the outside. Ronald Kessler, author In the President’s Secret Service
The answer to the runaway presidency is not the messenger-boy presidency. The American democracy must discover a middle way between making the president a czar and making him a puppet. Arthur M Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency, 1973
You will command the most devastating military force history has ever known. Live in a mansion. Travel in style. And be served and protected by a million dollar entourage. But would you really want this job? Everyone wants something from you. Everyone has an agenda. Your time is no longer your own. Even your house belongs to the people. It’s Good to be the President, 2011
George W Bush woke up at 5.30 a.m. every day; Bill Clinton went for a morning jog; Harry Truman took a shot of Bourbon before breakfast; Reagan enjoyed a light read before getting down to the news. ibid.
But the staff of the West Wing are a very recent addition to the office of the presidency. ibid.
Thomas Jefferson had to pay for a White House secretary and messenger out of his own pocket. ibid.
Presidents come and go but butlers stay. ibid.
Each incumbent learns very quickly that being president means never being alone. ibid.
In fact in the last thirty years White House security has been breached at least ninety-one times. ibid.
Camp David – this rustic presidential retreat only a thirty minute helicopter ride away from Washington is so well hidden that it doesn’t even appear on local maps. ibid.
Harry Truman liked to go out on strolls, to buy newspapers, walk the dog, deposit cheques at the local bank. ibid.
It was never the original intention that the president should live so differently from ordinary people. ibid.
When Thomas Jefferson left office he owed more than $20,000. ibid.
The beast: This $300,000 limousine is flown to wherever the president is visiting. ibid.
By September 1975 Gerald Ford had been president for just over a year. That month there were two attempts to assassinate him. ibid.
For the modern president image is everything. ibid.
Harry Truman entered the presidency with the highest approval rating of all modern presidents. But it didn’t last. ibid.
Clinton ended his two-term presidency with the highest approval rating of any outgoing president. Ronald Reagan came second. ibid.
Two-term presidents are amongst the only US born citizens that can’t be elected or rather re-elected president. ibid.
Bill Clinton has raked in more than $60,000,000 in speeches alone since leaving office. ibid.
He is arguably the most powerful person in the world. He commands the greatest military in history. And every public move he makes is recorded and scrutinised. But in an era where almost nothing can be kept private, does the president of the United States have secrets? Information so forbidden, so potentially dangerous, that it must be kept hidden from the public. But if there are secrets, where would they be kept? The President’s Book of Secrets, History 2010
A book passed down from one president to another in a nearly unbroken chain ... Is there really a president’s book of secrets? ibid.
The Doomsday Plan – in the event of a nuclear attack three teams of government officials would be sent out from Washington to different locations. Each team would be prepared to assume leadership of the country. ibid.
Six days a week the president of the United States chairs the national security session where he is briefed on all of the intelligence issues that threaten the United States. ibid.
Today the Situation Room functions as the president’s global information and response centre. ibid.
The massive protection surrounding the president can turn a simple trip across Washington into an enormous and complex operation. ibid.
The Freemasons, The Council on Foreign Relations, the New World Order, Skulls & Bones, there are many who believe the United States is run by secret societies ... The power behind the throne. ibid.
Trapped inside the bubble; to combat this problem presidents often turn to unofficial advisers outside the White House. ibid.
They are some of the most advanced and heavily protected vehicles ever built operated by technicians prepared for the worst. America’s Book of Secrets: Presidential Transports s1e7, History 2012
The helicopter is transported overseas on every trip made by the president. ibid.
Dangerous missions. Covert operations. And deadly assassinations. Ordered by the president of the United States. America’s Book of Secrets: Presidential Cover-Ups s2e7, H2 2014
Presidential Documents Executive Order 13491 of January 22, 2009 Ensuring Lawful Interrogations ... ‘to promote the safe, lawful, and humane treatment of individuals in United States' custody and of United States' personnel who are detained in armed conflicts.’ ibid. Obama
Watergate: Washington DC on 17th June 1972: The Watergate office building. Five burglars broke in that night to photograph documents and plant listening devices at the Democratic National Committee headquarters based in the building ... The burglars were caught redhanded ... The White House Plumbers were working on behalf of President Richard Nixon’s election campaign. ibid.
‘What did the president know and when did he know it?’ ibid. Democrats in Senate
Had he orchestrated a cover-up? ibid.
Arms for hostages ... Why was the Reagan administration so willing to sell arms to a country so openly hostile to America? ibid.
Nicaragua: Reagan believed strongly that the Contras deserved American funding and support. Any such funding had been banned by Congress. ibid.
In the end several high-ranking members of the Reagan administration were either indicted, convicted, or had their careers for ever tarnished by the affair and the cover-up ... directed by George H W Bush. ibid.
Obama 2011: A drone strike in Yemen in 2011. A strike that targeted and killed an America citizen. ibid.
Have presidential cover-ups become so sophisticated that the general public will never really know what goes on behind the doors of the Oval Office? ibid.
America’s greatest explorer was murdered carrying secret presidential codes? In 1809 Meriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark is the sitting governor in the Louisiana territory when he dies in Tennessee. Brad Meltzer’s Decoded s1e2: Secret Presidential Codes, History 2010
Where’s Jefferson been this whole time? How could he have just accepted Lewis killed himself with no questions asked? ibid.
The understanding was that the vice-president would be the central player in the new administration, and do everything he could to enhance presidential power. Frontline: Cheney’s Law, PBS 2007
The vice-president set the style: secrecy. ibid.
He became President Ford’s Chief of Staff. ibid.
9/11: They wanted to gather as much power for the president as possible. ibid.
But the Democrats weren’t disposed to grant such sweeping presidential authority and they controlled the Senate. ibid.
Goldsmith was one of the first outsiders to read the memos written by his friend John Yoo. To his surprise they place almost no limits on the power of the president. ibid.