This is the season for Presidential Libraries. The Obama Presidential Center just opened in Chicago. I think the word “stunning” applies, as in “I just got hit on the head with a 2 by 4 and am stunned.”
The Theodore Roosevelt will open on July 4 in Medora, North Dakota. (There is a reason for its remote location.)
Presidential libraries have become a retirement hobby for my wife and me. The very first time I visited one was on the very first day it opened. It was May 1971 and I had just graduated from the University of Texas. I heard the LBJ library was opening on campus, so I wandered over to check it out. It was a different time because I just stood in the crowd and saw LBJ and Nixon open the doors.
I revisited the library a few years ago and it was interesting. Each president gets to tell his own story in his library so there was a lot about Lyndon’s social agenda but very little about Vietnam. One unusual thing was a short film taken in Johnson City back in the early teens. It was of some lady but in the background was a young Lyndon photobombing her. The National Archives had discovered it by accident and sent it to Austin.
Obama’s and Teddy’s libraries join an official series of presidential libraries which starts with Herbert Hoover’s in West Branch, Iowa. It’s a short drive and if you haven’t been, you should go. Herbie was a very interesting man whose image has been overshadowed by the Great Depression. Did you know he was one of the richest men in the world by the time he was 40?
FDR’s home in Hyde Park, New York is mostly a preservation of his mansion and the palatial grounds. Harry Truman’s is built in the style of a library in Independence, Missouri. His desk has the famous “The Buck Stops Here” sign and lots of references to “Give ’em hell, Harry!”
Eisenhower’s library is in Abilene, Kansas and reflects its small-town setting. Ike’s boyhood home is on the campus as well as an impressive library. The museum’s exhibits have a very retro feel, appropriate to our gauzy memories of the 1950s.
“Elegant” best describes the JFK museum in Boston. Its shape suggests the sail of a ship as it sits looking out on Boston Harbor. Inside, it shows all the glamour of Camelot without mentioning the glamorous women that Kennedy seemed to attract. Again, they get to tell the story they want.
Speaking of ignoring scandals, you won’t see the name Monica or see a blue dress or cigar at the William J. Clinton library in Little Rock. Like Kennedy’s, Clinton’s looks out over a body of water but it’s the Arkansas river instead of Boston Harbor. And the design looks more like a mobile home that the graceful sailing ship.
If you’re looking for a cover-up, where else would you go than the Richard Nixon library in California. When we were there, there was only the slightest mention of Watergate and how Tricky Dick left office. It was so bad that the National Archives told them they had to tell the whole story to retain their accreditation.
Most of the libraries have a replica of the Oval Office from its occupant’s time in office but the Nixon Library has recreated the East Room. (This isn’t the East Wing that Trump tore down but a room in the original White House) For many years it was the main reception room for galas and there are pictures of all the famous people who have been there and the parties they had.
As we look to the future, we have to wonder what the last two presidents’ libraries will look like. Given Uncle Joe’s age and mental condition, his might be in the back of room 206 at a Motel 6 in downtown Scranton.
Trump, on the other hand, has already released his plans. Of course, it is ‘YUGE and garish. In fact, it’s not even a library because (surprise, surprise) he doesn’t like libraries. Instead, it will be a multistory hotel in the “greatest location in Miami” (his words, not mine).
Sigh. The egos in the Oval Office may have moved on beyond museums and libraries. Now, they’re planning temples where we common folk can go worship at their throne.
Harry Bulkeley is a retired judge in Knox County.
This article originally appeared on Galesburg Register-Mail: Do presidential libraries tell the whole story? | Opinion
Reporting by Harry Bulkeley, Special to the Galesburg Register-Mail / Galesburg Register-Mail
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Harry Bulkeley, Special to the Galesburg Register-Mail | USA TODAY Network
