The Presidents Club
Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity
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The Presidents Club
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Narrated by:
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Bob Walter
About this listen
The Presidents Club was born at Eisenhower’s inauguration when Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover first conceived the idea. Over the years that followed - and to this day - the presidents relied on, misunderstood, sabotaged, and formed alliances with one another that changed history. The world’s most exclusive fraternity is a complicated place: its members are bound forever because they sat in the Oval Office and know its secrets, yet they are immortal rivals for history’s favor.
Some presidents needed their predecessors to keep their secrets; others needed them to disappear. Most just needed help getting the job done. Truman enlisted Hoover to help him save Europe; Kennedy turned to Ike on Cuba; Nixon sought Johnson’s advice on getting reelected, but then tried to blackmail him; Ford and Carter couldn’t stand each other until they saw what they had in common; Reagan and Clinton relied on Nixon as an off-the-books emissary to Russia; Bush put Clinton and his father to work and they became like father and son; and Obama and Clinton became quiet rivals for the same crown.
Journalists and presidential historians Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy unravel the secret compacts, the shared scars, and the private cease-fires from Hoover to Obama. The Presidents Club will change the way we think about the presidency, for the club itself is an instrument of presidential power.
©2012 Nancy Gibbs, Michael Duffy (P)2012 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency
- By: Chris Whipple
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,574
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,375
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,364
The chiefs of staff, often referred to as "the gatekeepers", wield tremendous power in Washington and beyond; they decide who is allowed to see the president, negotiate with Congress to push POTUS's agenda, and - most crucially - enjoy unparalleled access to the leader of the free world. Through extensive, intimate interviews with 18 living chiefs (including Reince Priebus) and two former presidents, award-winning journalist and producer Chris Whipple pulls back the curtain on this unique fraternity. In doing so, he revises our understanding of presidential history.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting, but lacking in political objectivity
- By Stephen Watson on 09-04-17
By: Chris Whipple
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Three Days in January
- Dwight Eisenhower's Final Mission
- By: Bret Baier, Catherine Whitney
- Narrated by: Bret Baier, Danny Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 933
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 836
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 829
In this debut history from one of America's most influential political journalists, Bret Baier casts the three days between Dwight Eisenhower's prophetic "farewell address" on the evening of January 17, 1961, and his successor John F. Kennedy's inauguration on the afternoon of January 20 as the final mission of one of modern America's greatest leaders.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Gently In Manner, Strongly In Deed...
- By Gillian on 01-20-17
By: Bret Baier, and others
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Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero
- By: Chris Matthews
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 13 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 489
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 426
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 423
In Chris Matthews’ extraordinary biography, we see this most beloved president in the company of friends. We see and feel him close-up, having fun and giving off that restlessness of his. We watch him navigate his life from privileged, rebellious youth to gutsy American president. We witness his bravery in war and selfless rescue of his PT boat crew. We watch JFK as a young politician learning to play hardball and watch him grow into the leader who averts a nuclear war.
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3 out of 5 stars
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What Might Have Been?
- By Mel on 12-06-11
By: Chris Matthews
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Tip and the Gipper
- When Politics Worked
- By: Chris Matthews
- Narrated by: Chris Matthews
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 178
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 158
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 160
They were the political odd couple - the two most powerful men in the country, a pair who "couldn't be more different or more the same." For six years, Matthews was on the inside, watching the evolving relationship between President Reagan and Speaker of the House O’Neill. Drawing not only on his own remarkable knowledge but on extensive interviews with those closest to his subjects, Matthews brings this unlikely friendship to life in his unique voice.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I didn't want it to end
- By Jim on 10-06-13
By: Chris Matthews
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The Wise Men
- Six Friends and the World They Made
- By: Evan Thomas, Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Reese
- Length: 33 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 397
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 332
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 337
Six close friends shaped the role their country would play in the dangerous years following World War II. They were the original best and brightest, whose towering intellects, outsize personalities, and dramatic actions would bring order to the postwar chaos, and whose strong response to Soviet expansionism would leave a legacy that dominates American policy to this day. In April 1945, they converged to advise an untutored new president, Harry Truman.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Dull with poor narration
- By KD6161 on 03-31-17
By: Evan Thomas, and others
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Kissinger
- A Biography
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 34 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 952
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 815
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 816
By the time Henry Kissinger was made secretary of state in 1973, he had become, according to a Gallup poll, the most admired person in America and one of the most unlikely celebrities ever to capture the world’s imagination. Yet Kissinger was also reviled by large segments of the American public, ranging from liberal intellectuals to conservative activists. Kissinger explores the relationship between this complex man's personality and the foreign policy he pursued.
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3 out of 5 stars
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A dissapointment
- By Mike From Mesa on 12-16-13
By: Walter Isaacson
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Three Days in Moscow
- Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire
- By: Bret Baier, Catherine Whitney
- Narrated by: Bret Baier
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 846
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 773
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Story5 out of 5 stars 769
In Three Days in Moscow, Baier explores the dramatic endgame of America’s long struggle with the Soviet Union and President Ronald Reagan’s central role in shaping the world we live in today. On May 31, 1988, Reagan stood on Russian soil and addressed a packed audience at Moscow State University, delivering a remarkable - yet now largely forgotten - speech that capped his first visit to the Soviet capital.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing!
- By Brian W. Barton on 05-20-18
By: Bret Baier, and others
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LBJ's 1968
- Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America's Year of Upheaval
- By: Kyle Longley
- Narrated by: Paul Brion
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
1968 was an unprecedented year in terms of upheaval on numerous scales: political, military, economic, social, cultural. In the United States, perhaps no one was more undone by the events of 1968 than President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Kyle Longley leads his listeners on a behind-the-scenes tour of what Johnson characterized as the 'year of a continuous nightmare'. Longley explores how LBJ perceived the most significant events of 1968, including the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and the violent Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Worst year in my lifetime - LBJ tragedy of his own making - but not according to this Author.
- By charles wartelle on 05-17-19
By: Kyle Longley
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JFK's Last Hundred Days
- The Transformation of a Man and the Emergence of a Great President
- By: Thurston Clarke
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 93
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 80
A revelatory, minute-by-minute account of JFK’s final days that asks what might have been. Fifty years after his assassination, President John F. Kennedy’s legend endures. Noted author and historian Thurston Clarke reexamines the last months of the president’s life to show a man in the midst of great change, both in his family and in the key issues of his day: The Cold War, Civil Rights, and Vietnam, finally on the cusp of making good on his extraordinary promise.
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5 out of 5 stars
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In Depth and Beautifully Written
- By grace on 06-03-23
By: Thurston Clarke
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Counselor
- A Life at the Edge of History
- By: Ted Sorensen
- Narrated by: Ted Sorensen
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 107
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 61
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 60
Ted Sorensen, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor, recounts in full, for the first time, his experience counseling Kennedy through some of the most dramatic moments in American history. Rising from legislative assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as well as his book Profiles in Courage. Sorensen encouraged the junior senator's political ambitions and was later named special counsel to the president.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Rare Insight
- By Robert on 05-10-08
By: Ted Sorensen
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Reagan
- The Life
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 31 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 741
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 647
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 646
Ronald Reagan today is a conservative icon, celebrated for transforming the American domestic agenda and playing a crucial part in ending communism in the Soviet Union. In his masterful new biography, H. W. Brands argues that Reagan, along with FDR, was the most consequential president of the 20th century. Reagan took office at a time when the public sector, after a half century of New Deal liberalism, was widely perceived as bloated and inefficient, an impediment to personal liberty.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Very little about Reagan
- By Jack Merritt on 07-30-15
By: H. W. Brands
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Roosevelt's Second Act
- The Election of 1940 and the Politics of War
- By: Richard Moe
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 21
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 21
On August 31, 1939, nearing the end of his second and presumably final term in office, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was working in the Oval Office and contemplating construction of his presidential library and planning retirement. The next day German tanks had crossed the Polish border; Britain and France had declared war. Overnight the world had changed, and FDR found himself being forced to consider a dramatically different set of circumstances.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Puts listener in the moment.
- By Jake on 05-16-14
By: Richard Moe
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Eisenhower
- The White House Years
- By: Jim Newton
- Narrated by: John H. Mayer
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 86
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 76
If you think of our 34th president as little more than the babysitter-in-chief during the prosperous fifties, think again. Dwight Eisenhower was bequeathed an atomic bomb and was the first American president not to use it. He ground down Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism until both became, as he said, "McCarthywasm".
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4 out of 5 stars
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A simpler time?
- By Ray on 11-12-11
By: Jim Newton
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In My Time
- A Personal and Political Memoir
- By: Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann, Dick Cheney
- Length: 20 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 695
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 584
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 596
In his unmistakable voice and with an insider's eye on history, former Vice President Dick Cheney tells the story of his life and the nearly four decades he has spent at the center of American politics and power. In My Time is truly the last word about an incredible political era, by a man who lived it and helped define it - with courage and without compromise.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book
- By reader on 09-05-11
By: Dick Cheney, and others
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The Path to Power
- The Years of Lyndon Johnson
- By: Robert A. Caro
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 40 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 3,677
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 3,266
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Story5 out of 5 stars 3,256
This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country. The Path to Power reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart. It follows him from the Hill Country to New Deal Washington, from his boyhood through the years of the Depression to his debut as Congressman, his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, at age 31, of the national power for which he hungered.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Best of all Biographies
- By David C. Daggett on 12-14-13
By: Robert A. Caro
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The Hawk and the Dove
- Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War
- By: Nicholas Thompson
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 15 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 78
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 54
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
Only two Americans held positions of great influence throughout the Cold War; ironically, they were the chief advocates for the opposing strategies for winning---and surviving---that harrowing conflict. Both men came to power during World War II, reached their professional peaks during the Cold War's most frightening moments, and fought epic political battles that spanned decades.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Two outstanding people in the US Government
- By Nina Donnard on 11-05-09