What Kind of Temperament Is Best?

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Coleman: L.B.J. did like to twist arms, to say the least--the so-called L.B.J. treatment. But this was usually done on a very private level ... Now, the L.B.J. who got up onstage in press conferences wasn't that L.B.J. at all, and a lot of people would say that the L.B.J. in press conferences and in public was not nearly as effective. That L.B.J. probably couldn't get a lot done. But the L.B.J. in private was able to get things done, and you could--you can credit that type of personality, that kind of temperament, where he was sort of hot and cold to Congressmen and Senators, that he would sort of reel them in, push them back, reel them in. I mean, it wasn't just intimidating them; it was also reeling them in. The number of times we hear him on the telephone tapes telling friends and enemies, "I love you." This is an unusual thing to hear ... Nixon, I think, is another good example, where in public he could, with some exception, be quite statesmanlike. He could be the world statesman. You listen to him in private, and it's a very different person.

Smith: In a more benign way, I would point to Eisenhower ... It was famous around the White House that if [he] was wearing a brown suit that day, stay away, because you didn't want to be around him. George Washington spent a lifetime trying to control his temper, not always successfully. Eisenhower probably did a more successful job, but that's not public ... On a brown-suit day, he was irritable. He could be curt, but ... most of the time, [he was] much more politically sophisticated than he wanted the public or the press to believe.

Coleman: [Ike] had this reputation of being hands-off, that he wasn't interested in getting his hands dirty into policy, the standoffish meetings. And then once the papers come out in the '80s, you start to realize, Hang on--this guy knew what was going on.

Gage: The question of temperament can come to stand in for when there just don't seem to be a lot of other ways to predict someone's behavior ... and you've seen this much more in campaigns. George W. Bush is a good example. [He appeared] to be just very flat during the campaign. It was hard to tell what he thought ideologically. And how he behaved in office, of course, was different in those terms ... I was just trying to think of examples of moments that have become kind of our iconic moments of ideal presidential temperament. The Cuban missile crisis seems to be one. [Franklin] Roosevelt's first 100 days, I would argue, particularly because so many people are making comparisons with the present day, is another one that I think [is] often held up as a moment in which temperament, personality, the ability to lead and remain calm in crisis really matters.

Riley: [I would add] Reagan's survival of [an] assassination attempt, which had a profound effect on budget policy at that time, because Reagan was foundering a little bit during the early phase of his presidency ... He'd come out of an election--he had won an election that was closer than the score indicated ... but his grace literally under fire in that event, joking to the doctors as he was going under, and his recovery, I think, is a very good illustration of how, in an extreme set of circumstances, one's temperament can have an influence on politics.