36^th PRESIDENT

NAME: Lyndon Baines Johnson. He was named after W.C. Linden, a lawyer and family friend. His mother altered the spelling to Lyndon. Baines was his mother’s maiden name. He remained unnamed for the first three months, during which he was called, simply, Baby.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Johnson stood 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighed 210 pounds on becoming president. He had brown eyes and black hair, mixed with gray, which he combed straight back. His long, lined face was dominated by a rather large nose, a strong cleft chin, and oversized protruding ears. He wore reading glasses. In 1955 he suffered a severe heart attack but after six months’ convalescence recovered to resume a full work schedule. He suffered periodically from kidney stones. While president he underwent surgery to repair a scar that had not healed properly from a previous gall bladder operation and had a polyp removed from his throat. Otherwise his health generally was sound. Johnson dressed fashionably but preferred western clothing while on the ranch in Texas.

PERSONALITY: By all accounts Johnson was a complex personality, fiercely competitive, “always in a rush,” said his wife, a man who relished power, a master manipulator ho harnessed his finely tuned political instincts to achieve lofty goals. Journalists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak said of him during his term, “He can be as gentle and solicitous as a nurse, but as ruthless and deceptive as a riverboat gambler.” The president’s brother Sam Houston Johnson and others described him as secretive ans stubborn. First Lady Lady Bird Johnson regrets that the public did not get to see the soft side of the president. “He was a warm and mellow man in so many ways, gentle, extremely loving,” she said in an interview for U.S News and World Report (December 24, 1973). “But he was not eager to get up in front of thousands or millions of people and act that way. He was that way with his neighbors, his friends and in his home.”

PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.

35^th PRESIDENT

NAME: John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He was named after his maternal grandfather, John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald. He was Jack to friends.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Kennedy stood 6 feet .5 inch tall and weighed 170 pounds at the time of his death. Strikingly handsome and youthful in appearance, he had sensitive blue eyes, a mass of reddish-brown hair, and sound straight teeth. He wore reading glasses from age 13. His right leg was .75 inch longer than his left; he wore corrective shoes to compensate. Although he was muscular and athletic, his health generally was poor. He suffered from chronic back ache and was in pain much of his adult life. Injury in World War II aggravated his back condition. In 1954 he underwent spinal fusion surgery, following which he developed a nearly fatal infection and received the last rites of the Catholic church. He rallied, but his back plagued him for the rest of his life. He wore a canvas back brace for support and found some relief in treatments administered by Dr. Janet Travell of New York. From 1946 Kennedy also suffered from an adrenal insufficiency, an ailment akin to Addison’s disease.  With cortisone, and later corticosteroid tablets, this was controlled. In 1951 Kennedy contracted a fever in Japan and was near death with a 106 degree temperature. Kennedy dressed fashionably but had an aversion to hats.

PERSONALITY: Kennedy described himself as, “an idealist without illusions” and considered his best quality to be curiosity, his worst irritability. Kennedy’s charm, grace, and wit were to a great extent responsible for his immense popularity as president. He seemed distant to some, but, according to historian and Kennedy aide Arthur M. Schlesinger, he remained a bit detached in order to counter his extremely sensitive nature. For the most part he controlled his temper. Kenneth P. O’Donnell and other longtime associates report that he exploded in anger only twice as a national figure, once over a scheduling foul-up near the end of the 1960 presidential campaign and again during the confrontation with the steel industry. The Kennedy style, idealized after his death as the romance of the mythical Camelot, was, according to Schlesinger, simply “the triumph, hard-bought and well-earned, of a gallant and collected human being over the anguish of life.”

PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.

34^th PRESIDENT

NAME: David Dwight Eisenhower. He was named after his father but from childhood was called by his middle name to avoid confusion between the two. By the time he entered West Point, he was signing his name Dwight David Eisenhower. All six Eisenhower boys were at one time or another nicknamed Ike.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Eisenhower stood 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 178 pounds on becoming president. He had a fiar complexion, blue eyes, light brown hair, although he was almost completely bald as president, square shoulders and large hands. His most distinctive feature was his broad grin. He wore reading glasses. He had a trick knee, the result of a football injury. He caught cold easily and suffered from bursitis and ileitis from time to time. While president, he in 1955 suffered a heart attack, described by doctors as “moderate,” underwent an intestinal bypass operation in 1956, and had a slight stroke in 1957 that impaired his speech for 24 hours.

PERSONALITY: By all accounts Eisenhower was affable, gregarious, and a decent, honorable man who quietly inspired confidence and commanded respect. “Eisenhower wanted to like people,” biographer Peter Lyon has written, “he wanted people to like him; he was distressed when it failed to happen so. His need for a friendly rapport was one reason for his reluctance, so often marked by journalists, to speak ill of anyone.” Another reason was a lesson learned in childhood: Angry because he was not allowed to go out on Halloween with the older boys, young Ike beat his knuckles bloody against a tree trunk. That night his mother nursed his hands and, in what he called one of the most valuable moments in his life, explained how futile was the emotion of hatred. Thereafter he sought to avoid hating or publicly bad-mouthing anyone. The famous Eisenhower smile reflected his generally sunny, optimistic disposition. At times he grew depressed or exploded in anger, but never for extended periods. A bit superstitious, he carried in his pocket three lucky coins, a silver dollar, a five guinea gold piece, and a French franc. Eisenhower was a rather poor speaker, notorious for his fractured syntax. Sometimes, however, he hid behind this reputation when he wanted to avoid responding directly to a question.

PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.

33^rd PRESIDENT

NAME: Harry S Truman. He was named after a maternal uncle Harrison Young. “S” was his full middle name. Undecided whether to give him the middle name Shippe, after his paternal grandfather, Anderson Shippe Truman, or Solomon, after his maternal grandfather, Solomon Young, his parents affixed the initial to represent both.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Truman stood 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 185 pounds when he became president, 175 pounds during his last year in office. He had blue eyes, brown hair that was mostly gray by the time he became president, a droopy nose, and a round full face. He had a slow heartbeat and chronic low blood pressure. He was extremely nearsighted and wore eyeglasses from age 6. Otherwise his health was generally sound. He dressed fashionably in tailor-made suits; he was named one of the ten best dressed senators.

PERSONALITY: “To really understand Harry S Truman,” wrote his daughter, “you must grasp the importance of humility in his thinking.”  To brag about himself or claim credit for something in public was anathema to him. “But,” Margaret Truman added, “this practice of humility never meant that dad downgraded his worth, his accomplishments, in his own mind.” Indeed, he was supremely confident of his own judgment. He acted boldly, and decisively. Once he made a decision, he forgot about it and went on to something else. He was earnest, incorruptible, and blunt in speech. Like Andrew Jackson, he was notorious for his explosive temper and salty language. To some it was refreshing to see a president honest enough to blow off steam in public. It disturbed others, like David Lilienthal, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, who worried that his temper might set off World War III. Although irascible, Truman was not moody or prone to depression. He thrived on the rough and tumble of politics. “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen,” was his much-heralded philosophy. Truman delivered prepared addresses poorly in a flat voice marked by a distinct Missouri twang. But out on the stump, he fired up crowds with off-the-cuff speeches, characteristically of simple, straightforward sentences.

PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.

32^nd PRESIDENT

NAME: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was named after a great-uncle, Franklin Hughes Delano. His father wanted to name him Isaac, but his mother objected. His mother wanted to name him Warren Delano, but her brother had just lost an infant by that name and in his grief persuaded her to choose another name. The indecision left the infant nameless for seven weeks.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Roosevelt stood 6 feet 1 inch tall and as president generally weighed in the 180s. Strikingly handsome, lean, and athletic as a young man, he had blue eyes, underscored by dark circles as he grew older, dark wavy hair, and a strong thrusting jaw. He was nearsighted and from age 18 wore eyeglasses. He contracted polio in 1921. After a day of sailing and fishing with his boys on Compobello Island, Roosevelt helped some local residents fight a forest fire and then took a cold dip in the Bay of Fundy. He jogged the mile back home, where, still in his wet trunks, he went through his mail. That night he went to bed with the chills. Two days later he could not move his legs. Dr. W.W. Keen (who had taken part in the cancer operation on President Grover Cleveland in 1893) of Philadelphia diagnosed some sort of temporary paralysis. Dr. Robert S. Lovett of Boston recognized the signs of poliomyelitis. Through rigorous exercise Roosevelt eventually learned to stand with braces and to walk briefly with crutches or canes. In deep water he was able to stand without braces. Except for polio and chronic sinus trouble, Roosevelt was strong and healthy. Although his lower limbs withered, he was muscular from the waist up.

PERSONALITY: Roosevelt was ebullient, charming, persuasive, gregarious, and genuinely interested in people and their problems. To some he seemed snooty as a young man; his habit of carrying his head back and literally looking down his nose at others through pince-nez reinforced this early image. According to his wife, being stricken with polio made him more sensitive to the feelings of other people. He was not the least bit sensitive about his handicap, however. While onlookers typically shifted about in discomfort as he was lifted in and out of automobiles or struggled with his ungainly braces, he invariably eased the tension with a joke or simply carried on a conversation as if nothing unusual were going on. As president during 12 of the most difficult years in American history, Roosevelt worked well under pressure. “His composure under stress was remarkable,” commented biographer James MacGregor Burns. “The main reason for Roosevelt’s composure was his serene and absolute assurance as to the value and importance of what he was doing.” A common complaint about Roosevelt, even among his admirers, was his devious nature. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes complained that he never spoke with complete frankness even to his most loyal supporters.

PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.

31^st PRESIDENT

NAME: Herbert Clark Hoover. From his youth he was known as Bert to friends.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Hoover stood 5 feet 11 inches tall and had straight brown hair, parted just to the left of center, hazel eyes, a round fleshy face, ruddy complexion, and a husky build. He was slightly round-shouldered. As a young man he wore a beard and mustache to look older. He dressed simply.

PERSONALITY: Hoover was hardworking, incorruptible, self-assured and self-reliant. But he was also aloof, shy, wary of crowds, awkward at superficial social relations, and extremely sensitive to criticism. “It was,” biographer David Burner has written, “perhaps the private man’s shrinkage from rough political contact, the predilection for working by himself, and the habit of perceiving problems as requiring rational, impersonal solutions that made Hoover uncomfortable with the rude, demanding Congress as well as with the press.” Hoover often was curt with subordinates. A model of efficiency himself, he expected the same of others. Characteristically, he concentrated on detail rather than on the broader significance of a problem. He was a dull speaker, rarely lifting his eyes from the prepared text.

PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.

30^th PRESIDENT

NAME: John Calvin Coolidge. He was named after his father but was always called Calvin or Cal at home to avoid confusion. He dropped the first name after graduating from college.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Coolidge stood about 5 feet 9 inches tall and was slightly built. He had finely chiseled features, a narrow pointed nose, cleft chin, small deeply set blue eyes, and thin pursed lips. The red hair of his youth turned sandy in maturity. He spoke with a New England nasal twang. He walked in short, quick steps. He suffered from chronic respiratory and digestive ailments. As president he underwent frequent attacks of asthma, hay fever, bronchitis, and stomach upset. He relied on nasal sprays to relieve his swollen sinuses and took a variety of pills for other symptoms. He coughed so often that he feared he had tuberculosis. He tired easily and usually slept about 11 hours a day, 9 hours at night and a 2-hour nap in the afternoon. He dressed fashionably in suits tailor-made in Vermont. He slicked down his hair with petroleum jelly. Curiously, he insisted on wearing baggy underwear.

PERSONALITY: Coolidge was shy, undemonstrative, restrained, cautious wholly self-reliant, and a man of few friends. “When I was a little fellow,” Coolidge recalled, “as long ago as I can remember, I would go into a panic if I heard strange voices in the kitchen. I felt I just couldn’t meet the people and shake hands with them…The hardest thing in the world was to have to go through the kitchen door and give them a greeting. I was almost ten before I realized I couldn’t go on that way. And by fighting hard I used to manage to get through that door. I’m all right with old friends, but everytime I meet a stranger, I’ve got to go through that old kitchen door, back home, and it’s not easy.” Coolidge was frugal but no sponger. When he send an aide out for a magazine, for example, he expected his change, even if it was just a nickel, and complained if he did not get it promptly. Whenever he borrowed a minor sum, he quickly repaid it to the penny. His reputation as a man of few, but witty, words was legend. A typical exchange involved the hostess who came up to him and said, “You must talk to me, Mr. President. I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you.” Coolidge replied, “You lose.”

29^th PRESIDENT

NAME: Warren Gamaliel Harding. He was named after his great-uncle the Reverend Warren Gamaliel Bancroft, a Methodist chaplain at the Wisconsin State Prison. Warren’s mother had wanted to name him Winfield but deferred to her husband’s wishes. She called him “Winnie,” however.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Six feet tall, large-boned, and full-chested, he was darkly handsome with a thick head of gleaming white hair, bushy black eyebrows above soft, gray eyes, a classic Roman nose, and a rich, pleasant voice. He dressed impeccably. His health generally was poor. At 24 he suffered a nervous breakdown and spent several weeks in a sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, run by Dr. J.P. Kellogg of the breakfast-cereal Kelloggs. Four years later, and sporadically thereafter, he returned to Battle Creek for rest. Besides frazzled nerves, Harding also suffered frequently from heartburn and indigestion.

PERSONALITY: Harding genuinely like people. His relaxed managerial style in running his newspaper in Marion, Ohio, made for good labor relations. In his more than three decades as publisher he never fired a single employee. As a legislator, he was well liked by members of both parties and although he voted the Republican line, his aversion to confrontation kept him above brute political infighting. In campaigning he always took the high road, pointing out the positive aspects of his candidacy rather than resorting to personal attacks on his opponent. Harding was truly humble, a humility that sprang from a candid awareness of his own limitations. “Harding desperately sought approval all his life,” wrote biographer Andrew Sinclair. “He hated to be forced to decide on matters that might antagonize people. At any given moment of his career, he was prepared to trim his sails in order to please.” Harding himself acknowledged his pliable nature in a revealing anecdote he recounted before the National Press Club in 1922: His father said to him ruefully one day, “Warren, it’s a good thing you wasn’t born a gal.” When the boy asked why, Mr. Harding responded, “Because you’d be in the family way all the time. You can’t say No.”

PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.

28^th PRESIDENT

NAME: Thomas Woodrow Wilson. He was named after his maternal grandfather, the Reverend Thomas Woodrow, a Presbyterian minister. After graduating from Princeton he began going by T. Woodrow Wilson and soon thereafter dropped the first initial.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: “For beauty I am not a star / There are others more handsome by far / But my face I don’t mind it / For I am behind it / It’s the people in front that I jar.” Thus in composing this self-deprecatory limerick did Wilson humorously acknowledge his rather homely features. He had a long, drawn face, blue-gray eyes, brown hair, a high forehead, oversized ears, and a thrusting jaw. Wilson had astonishingly bad teeth. He stood about 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 175-185 pounds. His health generally was poor. From childhood he was plagued by indigestion; as president he at times used a stomach pump on himself. The strain of overwork severely undermined his health; in college and as a professor at Princeton University he nearly collapsed under the load. Thereafter he learned to pace himself better. He wore glasses from age eight. In 1895 a retinal hemorrhage left him with poor vision in his right eye. He was virtually blind in his last years.

PERSONALITY: Wilson was an emotionally complex man. According to his principal biographer Arthur S. Link, Wilson craved affection and demanded unquestioned loyalty. “He had few intimates,” wrote Link, “and broke sooner of later with most of them…[and] his most enduring friends were admiring, uncritical women.” Wilson once described his own nature as a struggle between his Irish blood, “quick, generous, impulsive, passionate, anxious always to help and sympathize with those in distress,” and his Scotch blood, “canny, tenacious, cold, and perhaps a little exclusive.” In another instance he compared himself to a dormant volcano, placid on the outside, a boiling cauldron within. Before large crowds Wilson was expansive, supremely self-confident, a gifted, moving orator. In small groups of strangers, however, he often appeared shy and awkward.

PRIMARY SOURCES: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009; and http://www.doctorzebra.com.

27^th PRESIDENT

NAME: William Howard Taft. His middle name was after his paternal grandmother, Sylvia Howard. Friends called him Will. Because of his size, he earned the nickname Big Lub in school.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Taft stood 6 feet 2 inches tall, had chestnut hair, blue eyes, and a rather high, soft voice, and wore a great handlebar mustache. The heaviest president, he struggle all his adult life with a weight problem. He graduated from college a pudgy 243 pounds, and by 1904 he was up to 326 pounds. He then went on a diet, losing 75 pounds in two years. But as president his weight soared to 332 pounds. He had grown so bulky that he got stuck in the White House bathtub and had to have an outsized model brought in for his use. After stepping down as president he again began to watch his calories. By 1929 he, at 244 pounds, had regained the relatively trim figure of his youth. Except for the strain that his weight placed on his heart, Taft generally was in good health. However, in the Philippines in 1901 he nearly died from dengue fever.

PERSONALITY: Taft was cheerful, friendly, a typical hail-fellow-well-met with an infectious chuckle. Always popular, he had many friends, but, surprisingly, few intimates. “One of the astonishing things about Taft’s four years in the White House,” wrote biographer Henry F. Pringle, “was the almost total lack of men, related or otherwise, upon whom he could lean…For the most part, he faced his troubles alone.” He was not happy as president. The break with his predecessor and former mentor, Theodore Roosevelt, weighed heavily on his mind; he was often irritable, depressed, at least once in tears. He regained his good spirits in retirement and as chief justice.

PRIMARY SOURCE: DeGregorio, William A. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. 7th ed. Fort Lee: Barricade Books, 2009.