Your Top 10 Presidents of All Time

[Jason9612]

Mine, in descending order:

10. John F. Kennedy

9. James Polk

8. Dwight Eisenhower

7. Woodrow Wilson

6. Harry S. Truman

5. Theodore Roosevelt

4. Thomas Jefferson

3. George Washington

2. Abraham Lincoln

1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

[SammyBlue]

1. Mine from top down:

10: Harry S Truman
9: Dwight Eisenhower
8: George Washington
7: Woodrow Wilson
6: Theodore Roosevelt
5: James Monroe
4: James Madison
3: Thomas Jefferson
2: Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1: Abraham Lincoln

Honorable Mention: John F. Kennedy for what could have been.

I can't agree with your Polk reference. He inititated the illegal land grab called the Mexican-American War, the only Henry David Thoreau refused to pay his taxes for and was jailed for the second greatest act of civil disobedience in American History. The first being Rosa Parks.

[CTyankee]

4. I would rate Truman over Eisenhower

Eisenhower didn't do that much. He pretty much HAD to send troops into Little Rock. The U2 incident was a big embarrassment. Sputnik was another kick in the pants. And his people planned the Bay of Pigs attack and first got us entangled in Vietnam.

Truman desegregated the Armed Services, put George Marshall in charge of rebuilding and strengthening Western Europe, and enlarged the GI Bill so that thousands of servicemen who probably would not have been able to afford a college education were able to go. We are stronger as a nation because of Harry Truman.

[SammyBlue]

10. Truman and Eisenhower are tied in my eyes.

Truman loses his points with me because of his refusal to take on McCarthy and HUAC, and the Korean War.

[Roland99]

14. Truman killed tens of thousands of innocents with nuclear weapons

and none of them had to die.

[CTyankee]

16. Boy, this is horrible

Should we have "demonstrated" the atom bomb to prove to Japan that we meant business? Would they have listened? Were they in a cult mentality about the Japanese Empire and would have just ignored our warning?

I don't know. I do know the very emotional argument raised FOR the dropping of the bomb: sparing American GI's lives that would have been spent on the invasion of Japan.

I just don't know. I have not researched this extremely important topic. It bothers me a great deal, tho.

Anybody have any good reference materials on this question?

[Roland99]

17. Japan was about to surrender. An invasion of Japan was not going to be

necessary.


The bomb was used as deterrent to the burgeoning Soviet Union.

[SammyBlue]

22. Unfortunately, at the time, we didn't know Japan was about the surrender.

Hiroshima might have been necessary. . .since estimates were Japan, using Okinawa, would have fought behind every rock and blade of grass. We were estimating a 10 to 1 loss rate if we invaded, and the Department of War estimated 1 million Americans would die.

Nagasaki, however, was overkill.

Please don't look at events of 1945 with eyes of 2006. Look at them as if you were living then. Truman didn't make the nuke decision lightly.

[Roland99]

25. Some history from 1945 >>>>>>>

Bard Memorandum, June 27, 1945
Memorandum by Ralph A. Bard, Undersecretary of the Navy, to Secretary of War Stimson, June 27, 1945

Source: U.S. National Archives, Record Group 77, Records of the Chief of Engineers, Manhattan Engineer District, Harrison-Bundy File, folder #77, "Interim Committee, International Control".
http://www.dannen.com/decision/bardmemo.html

MEMORANDUM ON THE USE OF S-1 BOMB:

Ever since I have been in touch with this program I have had a feeling that before the bomb is actually used against Japan that Japan should have some preliminary warning for say two or three days in advance of use. The position of the United States as a great humanitarian nation and the fair play attitude of our people generally is responsible in the main for this feeling.

During recent weeks I have also had the feeling very definitely that the Japanese government may be searching for some opportunity which they could use as a medium of surrender. Following the three-power conference emissaries from this country could contact representatives from Japan somewhere on the China Coast and make representations with regard to Russia's position and at the same time give them some information regarding the proposed use of atomic power, together with whatever assurances the President might care to make with regard to the Emperor of Japan and the treatment of the Japanese nation following unconditional surrender. It seems quite possible to me that this presents the opportunity which the Japanese are looking for.

I don't see that we have anything in particular to lose in following such a program. The stakes are so tremendous that it is my opinion very real consideration should be given to some plan of this kind. I do not believe under present circumstances existing that there is anyone in this country whose evaluation of the chances of the success of such a program is worth a great deal. The only way to find out is to try it out.

Truman Tells Stalin, July 24, 1945
http://www.dannen.com/decision/potsdam.html


http://www.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html

In March, 1945, I prepared a memorandum which was meant to be presented to President Roosevelt. This memorandum warned that the use of the bomb against the cities of Japan would start an atomic-arms race with Russia, and it raised the question whether avoiding such an arms race might not be more important than the short-term goal of knocking Japan out of the war. I was not certain that this memorandum would reach the President if I sent it "through channels." Therefore, I asked to see Mrs. Roosevelt, and I intended to transmit my memorandum through her - in a sealed envelope - to the President.

http://mediafilter.org/caq/Caq53.hiroshima.html

After the war, the world learned what U.S. leaders had known by early 1945: Japan was militarily defeated long before Hiroshima; it had been trying for months, if not for years, to surrender; and the U.S. had consistently rebuffed these overtures. A May 5 cable, intercepted and decoded by the U.S., dispelled any possible doubt that the Japanese were eager to sue for peace. Sent to Berlin by the German ambassador in Tokyo, after he talked to a ranking Japanese naval officer, it read: Since the situation is clearly recognized to be hopeless, large sections of the Japanese armed forces would not regard with disfavor an American request for capitulation even if the terms were hard.

As far as is known, Washington did nothing to pursue this opening. Later that month, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson almost capriciously dismissed three separate high-level recommendations from within the administration to activate peace negotiations. The proposals advocated signaling Japan that the U.S. was willing to consider the all-important retention of the emperor system; i.e., the U.S. would not insist upon unconditional surrender.

Stimson, like other high U.S. officials, did not really care in principle whether or not the emperor was retained. The term unconditional surrender was always a propaganda measure; wars are always ended with some kind of conditions. To some extent the insistence was a domestic consideration not wanting to appear to appease the Japanese. More important, however, it reflected a desire that the Japanese not surrender before the bomb could be used. One of the few people who had been aware of the Manhattan Project from the beginning, Stimson had come to think of it as his bomb, my secret, as he called it in his diary. On June 6, he told President Truman he was fearful that before the A-bombs were ready to be delivered, the Air Force would have Japan so bombed out that the new weapon would not have a fair background to show its strength. In his later memoirs, Stimson admitted that no effort was made, and none was seriously considered, to achieve surrender merely in order not to have to use the bomb.

And that effort could have been minimal. In July, before the leaders of the U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union met at Potsdam, the Japanese government sent several radio messages to its ambassador, Naotake Sato, in Moscow, asking him to request Soviet help in mediating a peace settlement. His Majesty is extremely anxious to terminate the war as soon as possible ..., said one communication. Should, however, the United States and Great Britain insist on unconditional surrender, Japan would be forced to fight to the bitter end.

Some of that sound familiar to the actions in the Middle East?

[CTyankee]

27. What was our rationale for "unconditional" surrender?

Was it that feelings in this country against the Japanese for what they did at Pearl Harbor were running so high that a negotiated end to the war would have been unacceptable to a majority of Americans?

Did we insist on unconditional surrender by Germany? In other words, did we demand it from our Asian enemy but not from our European enemy?

[Roland99]

29. I believe a key component was the removal of the Emperor.

That didn't really exist in Germany.

[Autonomy]

37. That makes no sense

After the uncondtional surrender MacArthur could have deposed the emperor, but it was acceptable to the US to keep him there. Sorry, your hypothesis falls flat if only because the emperor is still there today. Also, the Japanese weren't willing to accept an unconditional surrender before Nagasaki. They didn't believe the US had an atom bomb before Hiroshima, and after it they didn't believe the US had another one. They were recalcitrant in the last months of the war, and were playing a dangerous gamble, "calling" what they thought was a bluff. But such self-destructive gambits had been their M.O. since at least December, 1941, if you recall.

Yes, Germany received basically the same terms of unconditional surrender as Japan, but Germany was divided up amongst the conquerors, and Japan was allowed to stay whole. It's likely that the bombing of Dresden was supposed to allow Germany to stay whole as well, but it didn't work out that way.

We have a tendency to make two out-of-context mistakes on this question. The first is to regard WWII as a 'limited war', in the modern sense, in which there are 'proportional attacks' and 'innocents'. None of those things were true. It was all-out war to the death of the kind we don't really see anymore. Second, despite warnings from physicists and witnesses to the test explosions, the atom bomb was only considered to be a more powerful weapon, and not the totally different animal that we regard it as today.

[Roland99]

38. see my post #25 above for more detail

[Autonomy]

39. I saw it already

It doesn't mention deposing the emperor or the reluctance, despite some efforts at negotiation, of Japan to surrender. The emperor refused to surrender until Japan scored one more military victory for negotiation-leverage.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Japan)

To the extent they had a strategy for the war, Japan's military leaders expected to fight and win a "decisive battle" with the United States, after which they would negotiate a settlement of the war—as they had done in the Russo-Japanese War forty years before. Japan had conquered a vast empire in Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. If she had to give up some things to secure the rest, she could still view the war as a net gain.

also:

In April 1945, Admiral Suzuki Kantaro was chosen to replace Koiso. The "Fundamental Policy" of Suzuki's government was to fight on, and to choose "honorable death of the hundred million" over surrender. However, underlings in the government bureaucracy were pointing out the weakness of Japan's position, particularly the shortages of petroleum and food. Despite the Soviet Union's announcement that it would not renew its neutality pact with Japan, Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori was authorized to approach the Soviet Union, seeking to maintain its neutrality, or more fantastically, to form an alliance.

"It should be clearly made known to Russia that she owes her victory over Germany to Japan, since we remained neutral, and that it would be to the advantage of the Soviets to help Japan maintain her international position, since they have the United States as an enemy in the future."

And less than a month before Hiroshima:

On July 12, Togo directed Sato to tell the Russians that,

"His Majesty the Emperor, mindful of the fact that the present war daily brings greater evil and sacrifice upon the peoples of all the belligerent powers, desires from his heart that it may be quickly terminated. But so long as England and the United States insist upon unconditional surrender the Japanese Empire has no alternative but to fight on with all its strength for the honor and existence of the Motherland."

From the US's perspective: (http://www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=721)

The summary conclusions of the 1945 Intelligence Report on the proposed invasion of Japan (Operation Downfall) was as follows:

1. Japan would not surrender unconditionally without a demonstration of total destruction.

2. In an invasion of the Japanese home islands, the people would fight to the death to protect their nation.

3. An invasion of the Japanese home islands would cost approximately 1 million American casualties and perhaps 10 million Japanese.

edit: typo

[Roland99]

40. There are plenty of articles out there showing the unrealistic US demands

There was not going to be a way out without using the bomb as a form of hegemony against the rising Soviet power.

[Autonomy]

41. see my post #39 above for more detail

[Roland99]

42. Have a cookie

[Autonomy]

43. Sorry, I mistook you as willing to seriously discuss

the issue. My mistake.

[Yollam]

31. I agree with you completely on this, however...

Posting this inevitably ends up in an intractible flame war with those who love Truman either because of the D after his name, or rose-colored history glasses, or an inability to recognize atrocities when committed by their own country.

Seriously, it's pointless. I've tried countless times and they cannot be reached. Hell, I'd probably be the same way if I'd never lived in Japan and been to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and met victims personally. For most people, it takes a drastic change of perspective. For whatever reason, just "being told" never works. :(

[CTyankee]

15. That was a tough nut to crack

but Eisenhower was no prince when it came to McCarthy either.

The fact is that Eisenhower really didn't do that much for the average man and woman. Truman did. When I think about what Eisenhower's legacy is, I think of the Interstate highway system. At the time that seemed to be the great opening to our future. Now I see it as the Beginning of the End.

[Virginia Dare]

5. I basically agree with your list, it's a good one...n/t

[Autonomy]

2. my top 10

10. Woodrow Wilson
9. James Madison
8. James Monroe
7. John F. Kennedy
6. Bill Clinton
5. Theodore Roosevelt
4. Thomas Jefferson
3. George Washington
2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
1. Abraham Lincoln

[Burma Jones]

3. Mine

1. Washington

2. Lincoln

3. FDR

4. Jefferson

5. TR

6. Monroe

7. Wilson

8. Truman

9. Jackson

10. John Adams

[SammyBlue]

11. Jackson's treatment of the 5 civilized tribes was deplorable.

eom

[Jason9612]

21. I agree.

The march of tears was one of the worst acts committed by the U.S. It was dispicable in just about every way.

[Burma Jones]

26. yeah, he did it all by himself.....

pretty much every President and pretty much every European-American participated in or benefited from the genocide, even to this day. Given how Jackson is one of the founders of the Democratic Party and given how he took the office out of the hands of an eastern Elite, and, well, take a look at a 20 Dollar Bill, he's one of the big fish.

[slide to the left]

6. Mine

I am teaching American History in the fall

(in no particular order)

Clinton
Jefferson
Lincon
FDR
Kennedy (I went to the 6th floor Museum last weekend (where LHO shot him from))
Washington
Harrison

That is actually it. In the past 100 years there have not been that many great presidents. Clinton and FDR did everything they could for the economy and JFK pushed for civil rights. I don't like most war presidents, esp. from the past 100 years since wwi and wwii tended to fuck up the middle east. Same with Eisenhower since he was the one responsible for fucking up Iran (read "all the shah's men).

Harrison- only based on the fact the his presendency lasted 30 days. Why? you ask. Because he wanted to be "one of the people" and didnt wear a coat or hat during his long innaguration speak. Got sick and died 30 days later.

[Warpy]

7. Not sure if I agree with some of them

Kennedy lowered taxes on the richest 0.5%, giving them the extra funds they needed to start buying the government away from the people.

Polk started a unilateral, preemptive war. He's no hero.

Truman started the NSA and CIA, both agencies have run amok. He also signed a treaty favoring the French puppet government in Indochina, something that eventually led to Vietnam. He also dropped the atom bomb on two non military cities in Japan just to see what it would do to a pristine target, not on military sites of any description.

Lincoln oversaw the destruction of habeas corpus and also tried to eliminate freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Also, quite a few of us out here think he should have let Dixie GO. They've been dragging this country backwards since whitefolks landed there.
========

I might add Jimmy Carter, someone who inherited a tottering economy from Nixon and Ford and was willing to allow the Fed to raise interest rates to double digit levels in an attempt to end runaway inflation. It worked, more or less. Plus, his career since leaving office has been stellar.

John Adams. He was a workhorse, a completely unglamorous man whose skills are often underrated. Plus, he gave us Abigail as a First Lady. For that, I'll forgive him his mistakes.

Alexander Hamilton. Like him or not, you have to admit he contributed much to the way this country functions. He kept the new country sound, financially, and the Federalist Papers have remained the best guide we have as to the intent of the constitutional authors.

[Jason9612]

9. Except for the fact that Alexander Hamilton was never President...

Also, I think that if JFK wasn't assasinated he would have been one of the Top 5 Presidents of all time. And I wouldn't put Clinton in the top 10. Especially with all of the Impeachment stuff during his administration and perjery/Obstruction of justice, etc...Even though it was for something as petty as getting a blow job.

[Warpy]

19. OH, yuck, back to the books for me.

[mconvente]

13. I dont agree that we should've let the Dixie go

The blacks would STILL be slaves, and I know that is WAY worse than the problems we have the racists now.

[Warpy]

18. Mechanization would have killed slavery

by making it unprofitable within 50 years. The educated class of the South wouldn't have been slaughtered on the battlefield. There wouldn't be the incredible hostility to all things northern that exists today, even though it's under the surface. Jesse Helms got reelected for multiple terms on the sole strength of his ability to piss off New England intellectuals.

And we wouldn't have that conservative millstone around our necks.

[chaumont58]

8. Back during the turn of the millennium, CSPAN commissioned most

of this country's leading historians to rate all American Presidents, except Bill Clinton(in office at the time). What I remember about it is who was rated at the top five. First was Abraham Lincoln, next, George Washington, the next two were the Roosevelts(I don't remember which was 3 and which was 4), number five as Harry Truman. I took particular delight in it because Time Magazine had just rated the 50 most influential politicians of the 20th Century, and left Truman off, but included ole Raygun.
The people during the ratings were professional historians. Is their opinions any better than mine? Not necessarily, but their knowledge is assuredly greater than mine.

[WI_DEM]

12. ok

10. Theodore Roosevelt
9. Woodrow Wilson
8. James E. Carter
7. Dwight D. Eisenhower
6. Thomas Jefferson
5. Lyndon B. Johnson
4. Harry S Truman
3. George Washington
2. Franklin D. Roosevelt
1. Abraham Lincoln

[UrbScotty]

20. FDR also tops my list

10. Eisenhower
9. Truman
8. Wilson
7. T. Roosevelt
6. Clinton
5. Washington
4. JFK
3. Lincoln
2. Jefferson
1. FDR

[SammyBlue]

23. FDR's policy towards fleeing Jews from the Holocaust taints him

for me! He knew what Hitler was doing, but didn't do shit to condemn it. In fact, FDR ordered the USS Saint Louis away.

Watch the movie "Voyage of the Damned."

FDR fucked up when it came to the Holocaust.

[NJ Democrats]

24. Mine

1. FDR
2. Lincoln
3. Washington
4. Truman
5. Jefferson
6. Wilson
7. Clinton
8. Jackson
9. TR
10. Kennedy

Why do most people here have Eishenhower on their list? He did jack shit as President. He also supported the French in Indochina which led to Vietnam.

[CTyankee]

28. Yeah, it's funny

Possibly because Eisenhower's farewell address was prescient about the military/industrial relationship.

Eisenhower was a true war hero, but he didn't put his uniform back on and strut around air force carriers for photo ops. In fact, I doubt if he ever wore his former uniform once he was retired, altho he might have worn a flak jacket and helmet when he visited in Korea. I think he knew that it was important that we maintain the presidency as a civilian office, just as the Founders had envisioned.

[Yollam]

30. Mine...

1. FDR

2. JFK

3 Thomas Jefferson

4 Abraham Lincoln

5 Dwight Eisenhower

6 Bill Clinton

7 Woodrow WIlson

8 Jimmy Carter

9 Theodore Roosevelt

10 George Washington

[Arkham House]

32. JFK is #1, for a very simple reason--

--he single-handedly kept the world from blowing up during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The book of White House transcripts published a few years ago, taken in 1962, shows this very clearly. The pressure to invade Cuba, especially by the Pentagon, was just overwhelming, and any other President, I'm convinced, would have given in, thereby starting World War III and ending the American experiment, and most of the world. Seems to me that ensuring the country physically existed for future generations puts JFK at the top of the list...

[deaniac21]

35. Some would say his terrible performance in his summit with

Kruschev and the Bay of Pigs are the reason the Soviets felt they could put missles in Cuba. It dropped JFK down in my list.

[deaniac21]

33. Mine

1. Jimmy Carter

2. Bill Clinton

3. FDR

4. Harry Truman

5. George Washington

6. Andrew Jackson

7. William Henry Harrison

8. JFK

9. Lyndon Johnson

10. Andrew Johnson

[One Honest Guy]

34. Do they have to be American presidents?

Because finding top 10 American presidents would be difficult, and what do you mean by "Top"? Number of foreign nation invaded while they were in office?

[SaveElmer]

36. Lincoln # 1...

Followed by:

2. Washington

3. FDR

4. Teddy Roosevelt

5. Harry Truman

6. Thomas Jefferson

7. John Adams

8. Jackson

9. LBJ

10. Clinton