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Charles Trueheart

For two Americans in Saigon in 1963, the personal and the political combine to spark the drama of a lifetime

 Before it spread into a tragic war that defined a generation, the conflict in Vietnam smoldered as a guerrilla insurgency and a diplomatic nightmare. Into this volatile country stepped Frederick “Fritz” Nolting, the US ambassador, and his second-in-command, William “Bill” Trueheart, immortalized in David Halberstam’s landmark work The Best and the Brightest and accidental players in a pivotal juncture in modern US history.

Diplomats at War is a personal memoir by former Washington Post reporter Charles Trueheart—Bill’s son and Nolting’s godson—who grew up amid the events that traumatized two families and an entire nation. The book embeds the reader at the US embassy and dissects the fateful rift between Nolting and Trueheart over their divergent assessments of the South Vietnamese regime under Ngo Dinh Diem, who would ultimately be assassinated in a coup backed by the United States. Charles Trueheart retells the story of the United States’ headlong plunge into war from an entirely new vantage point—that of a son piecing together how his father and godfather participated in, and were deeply damaged by, this historic flashpoint. Their critical rupture, which also destroyed their close friendship, served as a dramatic preface to the United States’ disastrous involvement in the Vietnam conflict.

University of Virginia Press

Miller Center Studies on the Presidency

Diplomats at War: Friendship and Betrayal on the Brink of the Vietnam Conflict

Christopher P. Liddell

Designing and operating an effective White House are critical to the success of any presidency—and to democracy in the United States. Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Christopher Liddell offers a strategic approach to building a strong and successful presidency. An astute and experienced operative, he demonstrates persuasively that action must be taken early, comprehensively, and visibly, starting in what he calls Year Zero, the year before governing. His book lays out concrete nonpartisan steps and recommendations that would significantly improve how the White House functions and thus rebuild trust in one of our most fundamental institutions.

Year Zero: The Five-Year Presidency

Stephen J. Rockwell

Although many associate Franklin D. Roosevelt with the inauguration of the robust, dominant American presidency, the roots of his executive leadership style go much deeper. Examining the presidencies of John Quincy Adams, Ulysses S. Grant, and William Howard Taft, Stephen Rockwell traces emerging connections between presidential action and a robust state over the course of the nineteenth century and the Progressive Era.

By analyzing these three undervalued presidents’ savvy deployment of state authority and their use of administrative leadership, legislative initiatives, direct executive action, and public communication, Rockwell makes a compelling case that the nineteenth-century presidency was significantly more developed and interventionist than previously thought. As he shows for a significant number of policy arenas, the actions of Adams, Grant, and Taft touched the lives of millions of Americans and laid the foundations of what would become the American century.

The Presidency and the American State: Leadership and Decision Making in the Adams, Grant, and Taft Administrations

The death of a chief executive, regardless of the circumstances—sudden or expected, still in office or decades later—is always a moment of reckoning and reflection. Mourning the Presidents brings together renowned and emerging scholars to examine how different generations and communities of Americans have eulogized and remembered US presidents since George Washington’s death in 1799. Over twelve individually illuminating chapters, this volume offers a unique approach to understanding American culture and politics by uncovering parallels between different generations of mourners, highlighting distinct experiences, and examining what presidential deaths can tell us about societal fissures at various critical points in the nation’s history, right up to the present moment.

Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture

A. J. Wilson

David Marchick

Alexander Tippett

Ronald Reagan called the peaceful transfer of power from one U.S. president to the next a miracle, and it is. It is also the most delicate and hazardous period in the entire political cycle. Americans learned the stakes in 2020, when President Donald Trump’s refusal to trigger the formal start of the transition process to President-Elect Joe Biden created perhaps the worst crisis for American democracy since the Civil War. Even at the best of times, an incoming administration faces a gargantuan task, as every new president must make more than four thousand political appointments in a short period of time.

Yet the day-to-day process of presidential transitions remains poorly understood, even by government specialists. This is why the Partnership for Public Service’s Center for Presidential Transition created Transition Lab, a one-year podcast series that ran through January 2021. The Peaceful Transfer of Power now puts those distinct interviews with scholars, journalists, public servants, and—most important—participants in every transition from Ford–Carter to Trump–Biden into a narrative format that illuminates the long history, complexity, and current best practices associated with this most vital of democratic institutions.

Presidential transitions stand at a critical juncture here and abroad. Highly readable and deeply informative, this book offers every citizen invested in safeguarding our democracy accessible and concentrated insights that will help future transitions run better, faster, and more smoothly.

The Partnership for Public Service is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that is building a better government and a stronger democracy.

The Peaceful Transfer of Power: An Oral History of America's Presidential Transitions

Following the election of Donald Trump, the office of the U.S. president has come under scrutiny like never before. Featuring penetrating insights from high-profile presidential scholars, The Presidency provides the deep historical and constitutional context needed to put the Trump era into its proper perspective.Identifying key points at which the constitutional presidency could have evolved in different ways from the nation’s founding days to the present, these scholars examine presidential decisions that determined the direction of the nation and the world.

ContributorsBradley R. DeWees, U.S. Air Force * Richard J. Ellis, Willamette University * Stefanie Georgakis Abbott, University of Virginia * Joel K. Goldstein, Saint Louis University * Jennifer Lawless, University of Virginia * Sidney M. Milkis, University of Virginia * Sairkrishna Bangalore Prakash, University of Virginia * Russell L. Riley, University of Virginia * Andrew Rudalevige, Bowdoin College * Sean Theriault, University of Texas at Austin

The Presidency: Facing Constitutional Crossroads

In an increasingly polarized political environment, the first year of the new president’s term will be especially challenging. With a fresh mandate, however, the first year also offers opportunities that may never come again. The First Year Project is a fascinating initiative by the Miller Center of the University of Virginia that brings together top scholars on the American presidency and experienced officials to explore the first twelve months of past administrations, and draw practical lessons from that history, as we inaugurate a new president in January 2017.

This project is the basis for a new series of digital shorts published as Miller Center Studies on the Presidency. Presented as specially priced collections published exclusively in an ebook format, these timely examinations recognize the experiences of past presidents as an invaluable resource that can edify and instruct the incoming president.

Contributors: David Greenberg, Rutgers University * Anita Dunn, former Obama White House Communications Director * Susan Douglas, University of Michigan * Jeff Shesol, former Bill Clinton speechwriter * Mary Kate Cary, former Bush 41 speechwriter

Communication: Getting the Message Across

In an increasingly polarized political environment, the first year of the new president’s term will be especially challenging. With a fresh mandate, however, the first year also offers opportunities that may never come again. The First Year Project is a fascinating initiative by the Miller Center of the University of Virginia that brings together top scholars on the American presidency and experienced officials to explore the first twelve months of past administrations, and draw practical lessons from that history, as we inaugurate a new president in January 2017.

This project is the basis for a new series of digital shorts published as Miller Center Studies on the Presidency. Presented as specially priced collections published exclusively in an ebook format, these timely examinations recognize the experiences of past presidents as an invaluable resource that can edify and instruct the incoming president.

Contributors: Anno O. Law, Brooklyn College * David A. Martin, University of Virginia * Gary Freeman, University of Texas at Austin * Daniel Tichenor, University of Oregon * David Leblang and Sidney Milkis, University of Virginia

Immigration: Struggling over Borders

In an increasingly polarized political environment, the first year of the new president’s term will be especially challenging. With a fresh mandate, however, the first year also offers opportunities that may never come again. The First Year Project is a fascinating initiative by the Miller Center of the University of Virginia that brings together top scholars on the American presidency and experienced officials to explore the first twelve months of past administrations, and draw practical lessons from that history, as we inaugurate a new president in January 2017.

This project is the basis for a new series of digital shorts published as Miller Center Studies on the Presidency. Presented as specially priced collections published exclusively in an ebook format, these timely examinations recognize the experiences of past presidents as an invaluable resource that can edify and instruct the incoming president.

Contributors: Alan Taylor, University of Virginia * Gary Gallagher, University of Virginia * Bruce Katz, Brookings Institution * Kyle Kondik, UVA Center for Politics * Carolyn Dewar, Tom Dohrmann, Andrew Erdmann, Ryan Harper, and Junal Modi, McKinsey & Company

Broken Government: Bridging the Partisan Divide

In an increasingly polarized political environment, the first year of the new president’s term will be especially challenging. With a fresh mandate, however, the first year also offers opportunities that may never come again. The First Year Project is a fascinating initiative by the Miller Center of the University of Virginia that brings together top scholars on the American presidency and experienced officials to explore the first twelve months of past administrations, and draw practical lessons from that history, as we inaugurate a new president in January 2017. 

 This project is the basis for a new series of digital shorts published as Miller Center Studies on the Presidency. Presented as specially priced collections published exclusively in an ebook format, these timely examinations recognize the experiences of past presidents as an invaluable resource that can edify and instruct the incoming president. 

 Contributors: Michael Eric Dyuson, Georgetown University * Elizabeth Hinton, Harvard University * Orlando Patterson, Harvard University * Douglas A. Blackmon, Georgia State University