The President and the Press
IntroductionAs the only single official elected by all citizens, the American president, in effect, represents us all – both at...
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Roger B. Porter, Harvard University, December 1, 2005
We live in a time filled with skepticism and cynicism – about the motives of elected officials, about the integrity of corporate executives, about the behavioral lapses of celebrities. At the same time, there are those who lift our spirits and whose lives serve as a beacon of that which is good and inspiring.
Hugh Sidey was such a beacon. As his friends, associates, and admirers gathered in Washington to honor his memory, they reflected on the graciousness, the wit, the eloquence, and the insights that graced his nearly five decades in Washington.
Hugh Sidey, a caracature by Matt Wuerker
During the
To understand this remarkable man one needs to appreciate his origins. Born in Greenfield, Iowa, the son of a family of journalists who published the Adair County Free Press, Hugh Sidey came from America's heartland. Those who have lived on the graceful rolling terrain of the plains know of the stability it gives one's life and the firm foundation it helps to instill. By the time our family moved to Ames, Iowa, Hugh had completed his degree at Iowa State University and begun his career in journalism. After stints working on newspapers in Council Bluffs and Omaha, in 1955 he joined Life magazine in New York and two years later began covering the Eisenhower administration for Time magazine in Washington.
We became friends in the late 1960s when he accepted my invitation to deliver a series of addresses on the presidency at Brigham Young University. For an eager student who had only visited Washington, D.C. briefly, hearing his accounts of how presidents made decisions and shaped policies
His roots go a long way to explaining his greatness. While driving across the country with our oldest son, we stopped in Greenfield, Iowa for a meal in a local diner. I inquired whether the residents knew Hugh Sidey. Their positive response was instructive: "Hugh may be living in Washington, but we see him often. He has never really left Greenfield. He still knows where he comes from."
Like Ronald Reagan, another Midwesterner who migrated to the coasts, Hugh Sidey knew who he was, and he developed a core of values that animated his life. Three of those characteristics are worth pondering.
The first was his inner compass of integrity. He never misled or dissembled. He did not compromise, misrepresent, or misuse the information he gleaned in his interviews and conversations. Public officials knew that he could be trusted; that he would report it straight; that accuracy was his touchstone. In an environment where shortcuts are commonplace, he knew the value of one's word and the treasure that is found in an honest life. Yet he was neither stiff nor sanctimonious. He recognized the need not to take oneself too seriously as reflected in his observation: "A sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life."
A second redeeming quality was the dignity and respect he accorded others. Hugh Sidey viewed the presidency as a job constantly full of challenge, and the men who occupied the Oval Office as full of ambition and confidence. In countless conversations over many decades, I never heard him disparage a fellow journalist or question the motives of those about whom he wrote so perceptively. He developed a reverence for the Presidency that permitted him to retain his respect for the institution and its capacity for good, even while covering the scandals and missteps that periodically punctuate our national life. He did not leap to quick conclusions. He acquired a maturity that enabled him to see daily events in the context of the broad sweep of history. The judgments that he reached were grounded in a fundamental respect for all parts of the Washington community. In the process, his perceptive insights endeared him to those whom he met, great and ordinary.
Finally, he was full of optimism and hope about America and our great experiment in democracy. As much as anyone else, he helped me to understand the role of the
For more than a
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