Robert Dallek Quotations

He was able to put them on the trail of the truth to find out just exactly what was going on in this scandal.

Kennedy was very sensitive to this question of ever using nuclear weapons,

I think he's really undermined his credibility at this point, and it really saddles him with the kind of problems that Johnson and Nixon faced. These crises are such a heavy burden, and they are so self-inflicted, except for the court vacancies, that if he is not very careful and tries to put across someone who is seen as an ultraconservative, he is going to touch off a conflagration in the Senate.

It didn't work for Johnson, and it's not working for Bush.

What they are coming up against now is the limits of partisanship, the limits of dividing the country so decisively.

When I read about the hospitalizations, my eyes widened,

There's no question that these sorts of television images have a big impact on people and in many respects shape reactions to the White House,

These crises are such a heavy burden, and they are so self-inflicted, except for the court vacancies, that if he is not very careful and tries to put across someone who is seen as an ultraconservative, he is going to touch off a conflagration in the Senate.

Reagan restored a sense of hope, a sense of uplift about the presidency. Now it's ironic, because he preached the idea that government was not the solution, government was the problem. And yet, when he left the White House, he had kind of rekindled affection for the presidency.

A crisis is an opportunity for a president to step forward and exert effective leadership, and establish his credentials as a significant occupant of the Oval Office.

as he put it. Still, he added: ''Bush did make a comeback then. But the country was more receptive to his kind of leadership. I can't see how they're going to turn this around.

That's why pragmatism is such a central ingredient of an effective presidency. If you're not pragmatic, not responsive to changing realities, then you don't succeed.

It's a dramatic turnabout. Events have overtaken him.

What makes war interesting for Americans is that we don't fight war on our soil, we don't have direct experience of it, so there's an openness about the meanings we give it.

It is very difficult for [people] to accept the idea that someone as inconsequential as Oswald could have killed someone as consequential as Kennedy.

As someone who has more than a passing acquaintance with most of the 20th century presidents, I have often thought that their accomplishments have little staying power in shaping popular views of their leadership.

... what's in a person's heart and soul will not likely be changed by the ability to command a helicopter to land on the South Lawn.

Presidents by six years have been there long enough for the media and the country to see their flaws.

Like Lyndon Johnson, President Obama understands that timidity in a time of troubles is a prescription for failure.

Truman is now seen as a near-great president because he put in place the containment doctrine boosted by the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and NATO, which historians now see as having been at the center of American success in the cold war.

The consequence of the Bay of Pigs failure wasn't an acceptance of Castro and his control of Cuba but, rather, a renewed determination to bring him down by stealth.

In counterfactual history, nothing is certain.

One doesn't simply write about Lyndon Johnson. You get the Johnson treatment from beyond the grave - arm around you, nose to nose. I should admit that he also reminds me of my father, quite an overbearing and narcissistic character. And in some ways, he reminds me of myself. Another workaholic.