The Presidency / Featured Content

Featured Content

Highlights from the Miller Center's collections

President
The Johnsons and the Humphreys

Listening to the Presidency

'You Can’t Talk About War Plans'

In response to incidents in the Tonkin Gulf, President Johnson launched the first US bombing attacks on North Vietnam. Two days later, he asked political adviser James H. “Jim” Rowe Jr. to speak with Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey Jr. [DFL–Minnesota] regarding comments the senator had made about these events. Johnson feared that Humphrey had been too chatty in his remarks—and too accurate.

Soviet tank in Czechoslavakia

Listening to the Presidency

'Something [on] the Order of Hungary'

As part of his effort to keep the presidential candidates apprised of key developments involving US national security, President Johnson briefed Republican nominee Richard M. “Dick” Nixon about the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

LBJ talks with George Mahon in the Oval Office

Listening to the Presidency

Turning 'Tax-Eaters' into 'Taxpayers'

During a summer of civil unrest in American cities and just over three months before the Election of 1964, President Johnson spoke with House Appropriations Committee chair George H. Mahon [D–Texas] about passing the Economic Opportunity Act—the enabling legislation for Johnson's War on Poverty. The President explained that his approach would turn "tax-eaters" into "taxpayers." 

President Johnson and Wilbur Cohen talking

Listening to the Presidency

'It’s a Great Bill, Mr. President'

Shortly after the Ways and Means Committee reported the Medicare bill to the House, Under Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare [HEW] Wilbur J. Cohen explained to President Johnson the changes in the bill. In this excerpt, Cohen focused on the section covering physician costs, which had been adapted at the last minute from a Republican alternative bill. 

painting of george washington

The Presidency

American regicide

On December 20, just after arriving in the nation’s capital at Annapolis, Washington sent a note to the president of the Confederation Congress saying that he was there to resign his commission as commander-in- chief and wondering whether he should do so “in writing or at an audience.”
cartoon of Andrew Jackson as a king

The Presidency

The living presidency: Always at a crossroads

Why did the powers of the executive accrete over the course of the Constitutional Convention? Credit (or blame) George Washington and the determined delegates who relentlessly pressed for a robust executive.
Woodrow Wilson giving a speech with fingers raised

The Presidency

The personal presidency

Jeffrey Tulis has argued that there are “two constitutional presidencies”: the Founders’ formal office established by the Constitution of 1789 with checks on popular will, and the informal modern presidency created by Woodrow Wilson based on popular rhetorical leadership.
Barbara Perry and Stefanie Georgakis Abbott
Al Gore and George Bush composite photo

Elections

Bush v. Gore

The national spectacle of the Florida recounts, with its disputed ballots, “hanging chads,” and determinative Supreme Court ruling, undermined Bush’s wish to start his presidency with a strongly united nation. While he won an Electoral College victory 271 to 266, Gore won 500,000 more popular votes from the American people than the victor.
Gary L. Gregg II
cover of pamphlet: "who shall count the electors and declare the result?"

Elections

Down to the final days

Frequent adjournments and filibusters threatened to plunge the nation into chaos by leaving it with no president on inauguration day, March 4. 
Robert D. Johnston
Photo of Abraham Lincoln

Elections

The ultimate crisis

Abraham Lincoln experienced a unique initial year in the presidency. No other incoming president has faced a comparable challenge to the stability of the country.
Gary Gallagher
Campaign poster

Disputed Election of 1876

In 1876, no clear winner emerged in the presidential election because the outcomes in three states were unclear
Sheila Blackford
Jackson $20 bill

The Bank War

Democratic ideals and technocratic pragmatism clash
Sam Spencer
Bombing during the Gulf War bombing

War and Terrorism

The Gulf War

A turning point in how the George H. W. Bush administration viewed the international order
Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, split screen

Race and Racism

Reagan, Nixon, and race

In October 1971, a future president employed a hateful racial trope in a conversation with a predecessor
Marine looking out of hatch of armored personnel carrier

War and Terrorism

Proving ground

How the December 1989 invasion of Panama shaped the Bush 41 foreign policy team
Memorial for students slain at Kent State

Law and Justice

'Kill a few'

Nixon's cold-blooded take on Kent State showed little regard for those opposed to him
Detail of Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution

Frenemies: The Declaration and the U.S. Constitution

America's ongoing to struggle to reconcile its ideals with practical governing considerations—especially existing power structures—is captured in tensions between its two most important founding documents. After watching this conversation with the Miller Center's Sid Milkis, you may never think of the Declaration and Constitution in the same way again.
Garment workers listening to the radio

The Presidency

April 1968

Secret White House recordings as President Johnson faces an America rocked by the April 4 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Map of Barbados (detail)

Founding and Shaping of the Nation

The Washington brothers abroad

Lawrence Washington was ill. Leaving his family behind—a wife and infant daughter—and willing to risk weeks on the open sea during hurricane season—he would try the air of Barbados, or perish. Thankfully, Lawrence did not have to travel alone. His half-brother George, then only 19 years old, accompanied him.
Martha Washington

Founding and Shaping of the Nation

The general's 'right hand man'

During the American Revolution, Martha Washington embraced new roles and thrived under pressure.
The Papers of George Washington
Lyndon Johnson making a televised address

The Presidency

March 1968

Listen to President Johnson from March 1968 as he searches for answers before making a surprise announcement
Soldiers aiming rifles laying on ground

The Presidency

February 1968

Secret White House recordings reveal a year quickly unraveling for President Lyndon Johnson
Eisenhower and Ngo Dinh Diem

Foreign Affairs

America's Vietnam

In the 1950s, American strategists viewed Asia as the most dangerous and unstable theater of conflict with the Communist bloc. In Korea, in Taiwan, and in Southeast Asia, Americans perceived dangerous threats to the “free world.” And nowhere did the stakes seems higher than in Indochina.
Lyndon Johnson and William Westmoreland

The Presidency

January 1968

Listen to key recordings from the first month of an eventful year.
Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division escort African-American students to Central High School in Little Rock in September 1957.

Human Rights and Civil Rights

The struggle for civil rights

The Age of Eisenhower was a time of racial turmoil. During World War II, black Americans played a valiant role both in home-front factories and in battle-tested units on the front lines in the fight against Fascism. In the years after the war, black Americans demanded in return for their sacrifices that they be given equality before the law.
anti-communist movie posters

Political Parties and Movements

McCarthyism and the Red Scare

The paranoia about the internal Communist threat—what we call the Red Scare—reached a fever pitch between 1950 and 1954, when Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, a right-wing Republican, launched a series of highly publicized probes. Journalists, intellectuals, and even many of Eisenhower’s friends and close advisers agonized over what they saw as Ike’s timid approach to McCarthyism.
US Constitution

The Presidency

Presidents and the Constitution

Watch as Ken Gormley, the president of Duquesne University, describes how each of our 45 presidents has shaped the office in his own way using examples from his new book. This event was part of the Miller Center's Historical Presidency lecture series.
Nixon in parade 1968

War and Terrorism

The turning point: 1968

One of the most eventful years in American history began with the Tet offensive in Vietnam and ended with the election of Richard Nixon
Marines in Vietnam

War and Terrorism

Americanization

US troop levels in Vietnam increased by nearly 800 percent between 1964 and 1965. And more than half a million troops were in country by 1968.
Bombers in Vietnam

War and Terrorism

Escalation

US military presence in Vietnam began rapidly intensifying in 1965, as President Johnson sought to quell North Vietnam's support of insurgents in the south
Marine helicopters in Vietnam

War and Terrorism

The Johnson transition

The question of what to do in Vietnam was far from answered when Lyndon Johnson became president
Grainy photo of North Vietnamese torpedo boat

War and Terrorism

The Tonkin Gulf

The August 1964 passage of the Tonkin Gulf resolution was a pivotal moment in the escalation of the Vietnam War. But what was the incident that provoked its passage?
Kennedy and McNamara

War and Terrorism

The Kennedy Commitment

Determined to stop the spread of Communism in the early 1960s, President Kennedy increased US presence in Vietnam.
Eisenhower and Diem

War and Terrorism

The Diem coup in Vietnam

Late in 1963, the US government and President John F. Kennedy were grappling with rumors of an impending coup to overthrow South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.
Douglas MacArthur signs instrument of surrender aboard USS Missouri

War and Terrorism

The sights and sounds of V-J Day

The end of World War two came twice: once with the announced surrender of Japan on August 14, 1945, and again on September 2, with the signing of the Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.
Tom van der Voort
Nixon waves farewell in front of stylized background

The Presidency

Watergate: The aftermath

“Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office.” With those words, Richard Nixon became the first—and so far only—president to announce his resignation.
Ken Hughes
Miller Center
Detail from "Richard Nixon Superstar" album cover

The Presidency

Watergate: The president

No matter how much success he achieved, Richard Nixon's need for approval was never fully met. He could never shake the sense that all he had worked for might be taken away, and that those who came from more privileged backgrounds looked down on him. This sense was so strong, it filled Nixon with hatred—a hatred with which, in his own words, he eventually “destroyed himself.”
Tom van der Voort
Miller Center
Nixon with transcripts

The Presidency

Watergate: The Cover-Up

“It's going to be forgotten.” That was President Richard Nixon's first assessment of the Watergate break in on June 20, 1972, three days after five men were apprehended at Democratic National Committee headquarters. And just less than five months later, on November 7, 1972, 23.5% more Americans voted to reelect the president than to replace him with Democrat George McGovern
Tom van der Voort
Miller Center
James K. Polk's log cabin birthplace

The Presidency

Remembering James K. Polk

Under James K. Polk, the United States grew by more than a million square miles. More than any other President, Polk pursued "Manifest Destiny," the conviction that Providence had foreordained the United States to spread its republican institutions across North America.
Watergate security log

The Presidency

Watergate: The break-in

At 12:30 a.m., Frank Wills “cut all lights out in hall” and began to investigate. When he found a door taped open, he called the DC police. It was just before 2 a.m. So began the biggest scandal in presidential history.
Tom van der Voort
Miller Center
Forces preparing to land on D-day

War and Terrorism

The sounds of D-Day

Today we call it D-Day, but on June 6, 1944, when Americans first learned of the allied landings at Normandy, radio announcers called it "the invasion."
Tom van der Voort
Miller Center
Donald Trump with Richard Nixon in the background

The Presidency

Three little words

Three little Nixonian words swept the web at the news President Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey: “Saturday Night Massacre.” But whether this president shares Nixon’s fate will depend on whether the firing falls into a category captured by three other Nixonian words: “obstruction of justice.”
Ken Hughes
Miller Center
Federal building bombed-out in Oklahoma City

Law and Justice

Oklahoma City bombing

April 19, 1995: A truck filled with explosives detonated at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Read excerpts about the event from the Miller Center’s William J. Clinton Presidential History Project.
LBJ

Race and Racism

Mississippi Burning

Although many feared the worst, none of them knew for certain that a band of white supremacists associated with the Ku Klux Klan and the Neshoba County Sheriff’s Department had murdered them on a rural roadway.
Kent Germany and David Carter
pentagon papers volume cover

Nixon and the Pentagon Papers

The leak of the "Pentagon Papers" study of the Vietnam war became a turning point in the history of Richard Nixon’s presidency and a crucial catalyst in his downfall
Jordan Moran
National guardsman in front of burned out building

Human Rights and Civil Rights

The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

President Lyndon Johnson's secret White House recordings provide a remarkable inside look at government officials struggling to establish control over the civil unrest in large, urban cities such as Detroit, Washington DC, and Chicago in the wake of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.