Presidential legacies aren’t set in stone the day after they leave office.
According to Mark K. Updegrove, director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, post-presidential decisions can change the way history views a president.
“It takes a long time to see the forest for the trees,” he said.
In former President George W. Bush’s case, Updegrove says he’s excited to see what Bush can do in his post-presidential life, particularly with the already-formed Bush Institute.
Updegrove spoke to a small, but crowded, room in the DeGolyer Library Monday afternoon as part of an SMU Libraries event. Updegrove is a presidential historian and has been director of the LBJ Library since October 2009. He is the author of two books: Baptism by Fire: Eight Presidents Who Took Office in Times of Crisis (2009) and Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House (2006).
Updegrove discussed every U.S. President since Harry Truman and noted that the post-presidency life has undergone an evolution. When Truman left office, Updegrove said, “he had nothing”: no Secret Service detail, no office space, no staff and no presidential pension.
But now, Updegrove explained, presidents have begun to shape their legacy by their post-presidential life.
Several years after he resigned from office, Updegrove said Richard Nixon reinvented himself and began to devote himself to causes that he felt were important: particularly foreign policy.
He was a self-appointed Secretary of State; a freelancer, if you will, Updegrove said.
“There’s a lesson here for his successors,” Updegrove said, explaining that by concentrating on specific things, Nixon was able to burnish his image as a foreign policy expert instead of a disgraced President.
Jimmy Carter is another example of a president who changed his image post-presidency. Between leaving office and being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Updegrove explained that the outreach Carter has done with the Carter Center has overshadowed his administration.
Carter really considers the Carter Center as his legacy, not his presidency, Updegrove said.
For George W. Bush, Updegrove feels that it’s up to history to decide what his legacy will be.
Updegrove said LBJ wanted his library to be an objective view of his administration “with the bark off,” and he encouraged this by speeding up the declassification of many Vietnam documents. Updegrove encouraged officials at the Bush Library to do the same.
“I encourage the Bush folks as much as possible to give an unvarnished look” at the Bush administration, Updegrove said. “And let people decide” for themselves.
