January 2011

Professor of history emeritus, Yale University

It may seem odd to think of Jimmy Carter as the most underrated figure until one recalls how low his rating fell (to 26 percent in the polls) and then thinks of the policies largely responsible for his low rating: hostage recovery, terrorist negotiations, and relations with Iran, with other Middle East countries, and with Central America. In all of these areas Carter deserves higher ratings than his successor in the White House. And yet Ronald Reagan’s rating, even during the worst of his disgraces so far, never fell nearly so low as Carter’s. Of course, it started higher—perhaps overly high.

Most overrated:

Henry Ford. Despite popular misconceptions, he did not invent the automobile, the assembly line, vertical integration, or mass ownership of cars. What he did was simply to hit the auto market at an early stage of development when all it wanted was an unchanging, basic black, cheap open car like the Model T. Having cleaned up on this stroke of luck, he then stood rooted in ignorance while automotive progress whizzed by him.

Most underrated:

Two nominees of many possible. Montgomery Meigs, quartermaster general of the Union armies. He created the military machine that Grant and Lincoln were able to use to produce victory. Or else Albert Gallatin, Jefferson’s brilliant Secretary of the Treasury (and much else besides). He is largely forgotten because he was disqualified by foreign birth from ever contending for the Presidency.

Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities emeritus, Columbia University

Most overrated:

John F. Kennedy. Shortness of term by virtue of assassination has nothing to do with a fair judgment of JFK. In his experiences with the Bay of Pigs, Vietnam and the deposing of Diem, the confrontation with Khrushchev, and the response to the steel companies’ price increase, he demonstrated an immaturity that would doubtless have become more and more glaring in the public eye had he lived.

Most underrated:

Calvin Coolidge. A monarch was known through most of Western history for the age he presided over: viz., Pericles, Augustus, Louis XIV, Elizabeth I, President Washington, et al. The 1920s is probably the single most resplendent age of culture the United States has known: in the novel, in poetry, drama, criticism, in music (jazz, blues, etc.), and in art—if only in the motion picture. Coolidge has as much right to an “Age of Coolidge” as Louis XIV or Elizabeth I had to theirs.

Editor, The Washington Monthly

Most overrated:

What strikes me is how many people are alternately underrated and overrated as intellectual fashion changes. Truman, Elsenhower, Wilson, and Theodore Roosevelt are examples.

Most underrated:

I think the most underrated in history is George Mason, the real father of the First Amendment. The most underrated in recent years is Chester Bowles.

Author of President Makers from Mark Hanna to Joseph P. Kennedy

Most overrated:

John F. Kennedy, the youngest elected President, in his shocking death became a legend, a myth of enduring youth, a face on a silver coin, an inextinguishable flame. The image persists of a lost young man of wit and grace and charm in a vanished Camelot.

Yet what was he really? An ordinary man, in private life a crude philanderer, with no great love of the arts or of learning. What were the accomplishments of his thousand days? Very little, I think. Rather than accomplishments there were grim landmarks: the Bay of Pigs; the Berlin Wall, which Kennedy just let happen; the Cuban missile crisis, which ended by guaranteeing Castro’s position; the Vietnam War.

Most underrated:

Telling Our Children about Vietnam Telling Our Children about Vietnam Telling Our Children about Vietnam Telling Our Children about Vietnam Telling Our Children about Vietnam Telling Our Children about Vietnam Telling Our Children about Vietnam The Real Abe The Corps The Corps Strong Abridged Open Exit Cover to Cover Only a Troop Hawaiian History

Most overrated:

Harry Truman. The Cold War began with him; the witch-hunt began with him; the bombs he ordered dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t cause him the loss of one night’s sleep (to quote him). It is said Harry Truman grew in the Presidency. The sad truth is we, as a people, diminished to his size.

Most underrated:

Estes Kefauver. Though he was from Tennessee, he refused to sign the Southern Manifesto. At a moment of Cold War hysteria, he spoke out for peace and understanding. Intellectuals, to a great extent, ridiculed him as they paid homage to Adlai Stevenson. The latter went along with JFK’s Bay of Pigs fiasco and accepted humiliation. Kefauver under no circumstances would have exhibited such spinelessness. Kefauver might have been Lincolnian as a President.

Author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Angel of Repose

Most overrated:

Ronald Reagan, but not by me.

Most underrated:

Woodrow Wilson, maybe? He did his best to apply intelligence and a sense of history to politics and found that the system couldn’t accommodate them.

President, Texas A&M

Most overrated:

John F. Kennedy.

Most underrated:

Jefferson Davis.

Novelist; author of Chesapeake and Texas , among many others

Most overrated:

Gen. George Armstrong Custer, a flamboyant, exhibitionistic, loose-cannon poseur who enjoyed few successes and many failures, including a great disaster in which his loyal troops paid the supreme penalty for his braggadocio. In my various studies I have crossed his track many times and in many different situations and always with amazement that he should have been able to get away with what he did. But I am also amused that the one-track diligence of his widow should have converted him into a national hero of the most dubious credentials.

Most underrated: