Farewell to the Chief: Former Presidents in American Public Life

This volume is a transcript of a two-day conference at the Hoover Presidential Library on the Chief Executive's role after leaving the White House. Daniel Boorstin calls for a national council of former Presidents designed to stimulate a dialog about long-term national issues, although former President Gerald Ford rejects this notion. Conference participants also note that most active and flexible Presidents--Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman (who favored making former Presidents nonvoting members of Congress) --appear to remain much the same after leaving the White House. This will be a good supplementary text to Homer F. Cunningham's more comprehensive The President's Lost Years: George Washington to Lyndon Johnson (McFarland & Co., 1989) for political science collections.-William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., ShreveportCopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.