FIRST FRIENDS

A Clinton administration insider delivers a fruitful survey of the roles that close friends have played throughout presidential history.

Ginsberg comes to his subject by way of a long-ago spell of volunteering for the presidential campaign of Gary Hart, who had one well-known confidant in actor Warren Beatty and a lesser-known one in old friend and chief of staff Billy Shore, who “seemed to be Hart’s alter ego, someone with the right combination of intensity yet inner calm to keep an often pensive candidate switched on.” So it is across the span of presidencies: Thomas Jefferson had his Billy Shore in fellow Virginian James Madison, who himself would become president but who contented himself in remaining in Jefferson’s shadow even as he made substantial contributions to the Constitution. Woodrow Wilson had his “First Friend,” as Ginsberg dubs the occupant of that unofficial but influential role, in a diminutive Texan named Edward Mandell House, whose views neatly aligned with Wilson’s in most regards and who hand-picked many of the players in the Wilson administration. So it was with Vernon Jordan, Bill Clinton’s closest friend, who served numerous functions, from helping select staff members to warding off a post–Lewinsky affair threat of divorce on the part of the first lady. Perhaps most affecting in this series of portraits is, curiously enough, Richard Nixon’s friendship with Bebe Rebozo, a Cuban exile and influential banker who was seemingly glad to play “a subservient role” but who also knew how to deal with Nixon’s dark moods. Ginsberg does nothing to improve Nixon’s reputation as he recounts how the president eventually brought the straight-arrow Rebozo into the criminal conspiracy that ended his tenure in the White House—with Rebozo urging Nixon not to resign until the very end. There’s no real thesis in Ginsberg’s capably spun story, but there are plentiful insights.

A fresh, well-written take on the lives of our presidents.