During the last administration, questions about presidential power and White House decision-making have intensified. Obviously, it wasn’t a Truman presidency, where a plaque on his desk read, “The Buck Stops Here.” From President Biden’s own words during press conferences, “They don’t want me answering questions,” to an Easter Bunny at the White House Easter Egg Hunt, guiding Biden away from reporters. In the worst case, Speaker of the House Johnson revealed a troubling meeting where Biden appeared unaware of his own LNG export ban executive order, a decision directly affecting Johnson’s home state of Louisiana.
Historical precedents of shared presidential authority show that each President allows his Cabinet, members of Congress, past Presidents, and even wives varying degrees of authority and autonomy, often without public knowledge. We know when the Vice President takes the reins, when a sitting President becomes indisposed, either through a medical procedure, or out of caution, but the public is usually informed, so as not to scare citizens of the country being leaderless.
With the Biden Presidency ending with evidence of diminished capacity, there have been questions about who was actually in charge of the day-to-day activities of the office. There have been many stories, even investigative findings that raise the question of who was in charge, but it may surprise many to discover that any American President could be in any way “absent without leave,” but it has actually been more common than many think. When a candidate claims to have been involved with a decision, we question who made the final decision, what inputs were made, and how the chain of command was carried out.
The historical pattern of presidential succession challenges began notably on September 25, 1919, when after speaking in Pueblo, Colorado, Edith Wilson discovered her husband listless from a stroke. The leader of the United States through World War I, the architect of the League of Nations was paralyzed. Edith Wilson, wife and physician, served as an unelected President, and thankfully no important decisions had to be made, but leaves us with the question whether she forged his signature on budget bills in the last two years of his Presidency.
The FDR White House demonstrated similar patterns of protected presidential image, going to extraordinary means to hide his incapacity due to polio. The press agreed not to photograph him in a wheelchair or being lifted in and out of vehicles, but during his refreshing trips to Campobello, the presidency went with him. However, due to secrecy during the Second World War, there were no references to the transfer of power to the sitting Vice President while out of the country meeting Churchill and Stalin. After being elected to his fourth term, his health declined, but his power remained autocratic until his death, Truman being kept out of most of the decisions.
Kennedy’s health was hidden. His Addison’s disease, primary adrenal insufficiency, was kept from the public. Between his Addison’s and spinal osteoporosis pain he was on a medical diet that would have kept anyone from driving a car due to being under the influence of drugs. There are still questions today as to who was in charge, with the indication that his Attorney General — his brother — carried more influence than Lyndon Johnson, the sitting Vice President.
Toward the end of the Reagan presidency, Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and there were questions about whether Nancy, Ronald Reagan’s wife, may have been relying on Astrology for some of the national policies. After being shot, many believe that when Reagan returned, he was not the same man.
It comes down to the question of how much the public is entitled to know: all of it, some of it, or perhaps nothing at all — and that power is often shared with the press determining what to cover. We tend to hold our presidents responsible for everything that happens under their watch, but it is the nature of government that limits responsibility for individual events, protecting the man and the office.
This block from responsibility primarily due to the weight of White House decisions was reinforced last year by the Supreme Court, extending protection to both the Office and the person in it. Generally over time, history comes out, and it is the difference between the published history and what we learn later on that presents the intrigue of the fiction writer. With the release of the investigations into the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, one hopes that we may make progress in determining what really happened.
–Robert White is a financial planner and local historian. Search his name in our search bar for his other features.