We The Presidents: How American Presidents Shaped the Last Century by Ronald Gruner © 2022; Naples, Florida: libratum.press; ISBN 97817370823100; 642 pages including references and index; $18.50.
SAN DIEGO – Ronald Gruner, who spent his working career as a CEO of three different tech companies (Alliant Computer; Shareholder.com; and Sky.Analytics), is a lay historian deeply interested in economic policy and outcomes. His book, analyzing the presidencies of the 17 U.S. Presidents from Warren G. Harding to Donald J. Trump, focuses largely on issues like unemployment, interest rates, and inflation. But along the way he also makes mention of significant geopolitical events that occurred during those presidencies.
I will leave it to economists to determine the value of Gruner’s economic analyses. They are beyond my depth. What I did take notice of was how often our fellow Jews, and issues of direct relevance to the Jewish community, cropped up in the book.
Gruner, unsurprisingly, mentioned various Jewish economists and treasury secretaries such as Henry Morgenthau Jr., Milton Friedman, Arthur Burns, Alan Greenspan, Arthur Laffer, Gary Cohn, and Larry Kudlow.
He also referenced Jewish Supreme Court Justices Benjamin Cardozo and Ruth Bader Ginsburg; Jewish entertainers Al Jolson, Edward G. Robinson, Groucho Marx, and Marilyn Monroe; and Jewish journalists Carl Bernstein and Chris Wallace.
He alluded to the growth of Zionism during Harding’s administration; the development of the Holocaust during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration; and the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg during Harry Truman’s presidency as well as Truman’s granting U.S. recognition to Israel. He also referenced the Suez War during Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency; the Yom Kippur War under Richard Nixon’s presidency, the Camp David accords brought about by Jimmy Carter, and Iraq’s efforts to draw other Arab countries into the first Gulf War by shooting SCUD missiles at Israel. Additionally, he noted Israel’s opposition to the Iran Nuclear Deal during Barack Obama’s administration, and Donald Trump’s decision to dismantle the deal.
Gruner traced restrictive immigration quota legislation through the administrations of Harding and Calvin Coolidge, and more liberalized rules under Lyndon Johnson. He also mentioned some of this country’s worst anti-Semites including Father Charles Coughlin, Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford.
This, by far, was not a Jewish history as there were numerous gaps. The 1967 Six Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors during Lyndon Johnson’s administration went unmentioned, as did the Abraham Accords negotiated during the Trump presidency. Jewish Supreme Court Justices such as Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan did not make it into the narrative, nor did Jewish Cabinet officers like Abraham Ribicoff, Wilbur Cohen, Edward Levi, Harold Brown, Michael Blumenthal, Neil Goldschmidt, Philip Klutznick, Robert Reich, Bob Rubin, Dan Glickman, Mickey Kantor, Larry Summers, Muchael Chernoff, Michael Mukasey, Jack Lew, Penny Pritzker, Steve Mnuchin, and David Shulkin.
On the other hand, Henry Kissinger, who served as secretary of state under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald R. Ford, was the subject of extensive commentary during analyses of Nixon’s relations with China, and Ford’s relations with the Soviet Union.
Passing mention was given to such Jewish figures as George Soros, Roy Cohn, Carl Foreman, Monica Lewinsky, Paul Wolfowitz, Bernie Sanders, Barney Frank, Rod Rosenstein, Michael Cohen, and Avi Schiffmann, the latter being the young man who first began computerized tracking of the number of COVID-19 infections.
Another Jew who made it into the book was the Prophet Micah, whose injunction “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God” was quoted by President Ronald Reagan in his first inaugural address.
*
Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com