By Jared Cohen
The strength and prestige of the American presidency has waxed and
waned since George Washington. Accidental Presidents looks at eight men
who came to the office without being elected to it. It demonstrates how the
character of the man in that powerful seat affects the nation and world.
Eight men have succeeded to the presidency when the incumbent died in office.
In one way or another they vastly changed our history. Only Theodore Roosevelt
would have been elected in his own right. Only TR, Truman, Coolidge, and LBJ
were re-elected.
John Tyler succeeded William Henry Harrison who died 30 days into his
term. He was kicked out of his party and became the first president threatened
with impeachment. Millard Fillmore succeeded esteemed General Zachary
Taylor. He immediately sacked the entire cabinet and delayed an inevitable
Civil War by standing with Henry Clay’s compromise of 1850. Andrew Johnson,
who succeeded our greatest president, sided with remnants of the Confederacy in
Reconstruction. Chester Arthur, the embodiment of the spoils system, was
so reviled as James Garfield’s successor that he had to defend himself against
plotting Garfield’s assassination; but he reformed the civil service. Theodore
Roosevelt broke up the trusts. Calvin Coolidge silently cooled down
the Harding scandals and preserved the White House for the Republican Herbert
Hoover and the Great Depression. Truman surprised everybody when he
succeeded the great FDR and proved an able and accomplished president. Lyndon
B. Johnson was named to deliver Texas electorally. He led the nation
forward on Civil Rights but failed on Vietnam.
Accidental Presidents adds immeasurably to our understanding of the
power and limits of the American presidency in critical times.
About the Author
Jared Cohen is the founder and CEO of Jigsaw at
Alphabet Inc. He also serves as an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations. Previously, he ran Google Ideas at Google Inc. and served as
chief advisor to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. From 2006 to 2010 he
served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and as a close
advisor to Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. He is the New York
Times bestselling author of Accidental Presidents, The
New Digital Age, Children of Jihad, and One Hundred Days of
Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide. He lives in New York with his
wife and two daughters.
ISBN 978-1501109829,
Simon & Schuster, © 2019, Hardcover, 582 pages, Photographs, End Notes,
Bibliography & Index. $30.00. To purchase this book click HERE.
