US Presidents and the Women Close to Them Quiz

Answer: Grover Cleveland

The 1884 presidential campaign, perhaps the dirtiest in American history, made the 1988 Willie Horton-fest look like a Sunday-school debate. The Republicans tried to bash Cleveland about a premarital affair he had with Ms. Halpin; a child was born to her thereafter, and Cleveland supported the child, though it was clear the child may have been fathered by one of her other suitors.

The Republicans had the great misfortune to have as their candidate that exemplar of Gilded Age corruption, James G. Blaine, already well known to the American public as a man notoriously lacking in either scruples or conscience. Cleveland refused to hide or "spin" the Halpin story, and was ultimately rewarded with the presidency.

Answer: Andrew Jackson

She was the wife of Jackson's Secretary of War; Washington gossips passed around the tidbit that she was a bit of an adulteress, and the aristo wife of VP Calhoun turned up her nose at her, thus creating the famous rift between Calhoun and Jackson, who actually went so far as to declare Mrs. Eaton "as chaste as a virgin." The fireworks continued, exemplified by the famous "duel of toasts" at an 1830 Jefferson Day banquet. Jackson: "Our Union ... it must be preserved." Calhoun: "The Union ... next to our liberty, most dear." The argument can be made that these silly sallies were in essence the opening salvos of the Civil War.

The definitive account is John Marszalek's "The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House."

Answer: Judith Campbell Exner

The Onion's uproarious "Our Dumb Century" has as its 8/29/63 headline, "Kennedy, Giancana Sign Historic Bimbo-Sharing Accord." JFK of course compiled an amazing list of "conquests", but this one may have sparked the most controversy, especially in light of the unusually strong Democratic showing in Chicago in the '60 election. Exner herself has said (in "My Story") that Giancana told her "if it wasn't for me your boyfriend wouldn't even be in the White House."

Answer: Lemonade Lucy

Poor Rutherford B. Hayes! He ended up winning a crooked election (through no real contrivance of his own), he gets at best a historical footnote for having ended military reconstruction of the South (a plank arguably forced on him), and the pundits seem to remember him most because of his marriage to a woman who wouldn't let anyone drink at White House affairs (though wise guys used to smuggle in booze in oranges!).

In this historical (lack of) regard, Hayes is second only to the lamented James A. Garfield, who (as the great comedian Robert Klein has pointed out) is remembered only for having been "shot by a disappointed office-seeker."

Answer: Warren G. Harding

Britton authored a book in 1927 entitled "The President's Daughter" in which she alleged that Gamaliel had seduced her while he was in the Senate and had fathered her child. While it is possible that Harding was intimate with her at some point, there is great doubt that he fathered the child, and much of the detail in her book has not held up under scrutiny. See, e.g., Robert H. Ferrell's "The Strange Death of President Harding"; also see Paul Johnson's "A History of the American People", pp. 711-712. Johnson, ever the contrarian, makes a convincing case that Harding was not the debauched boob most Americans believe him to have been, and was in fact an "honest and shrewd president."

Answer: His mother, Hannah

From all the accounts available, Nixon's mom was indeed as he characterized her. A marvelous article by Time's Lance Morrow, entitled "How Mothers (and Fathers) Make Presidents" (available online at www.time.com/time/columnist/morrow/article/09565,109305,00.html)
traces an interesting and recurrent familial pattern of many of our recent presidents... "saintly mother, loutish father." Nixon certainly exemplified the phenomenon.

Answer: The Pentagon papers

Even after 30 years, the question remains: why did Nixon get so worked up about a study of our involvement in the Vietnam war that reflected badly almost entirely on Democratic administrations? Some have suggested Kissinger got him worked up to fever pitch about "leaks", clearly an important issue since we were trying covertly to negotiate our way out of the Vietnam conflict.

In any event, the brouhaha led down a slippery slope to Watergate and the ignominious end of Nixon's presidency. Nixon did care deeply for his daughters, however, and one still has to wonder if a subconscious motivation was Nixon's pique at having his daughter's nuptials "tainted" by this rather momentous political football.

Answer: Abraham Lincoln

Mary Todd came from an influential southern family, the Todds, and considered herself a bit of a blueblood. Lincoln, great commoner that he was, had only scorn for this sort of attitudinizing, and he famously observed, "For God, one "d" is enough, but the Todds need two." Nonetheless, she had a strong hand in Lincoln's rise and eventual apotheosis.

Historians have treated her a bit unkindly, often judging the Lincolns' marriage by contemporary standards, which is unfair.

Answer: Andrew Johnson

Poor Johnson had to follow Lincoln; the only modern-day equivalent I can think of would be trying to follow the Stones. He was a man of firm principle (however wrong some of them may have been), a good deal of bravery, and unfortunately, absolutely no tact.

He had a terribly poor upbringing, but overcame it; he found a good wife, Eliza McCardle, who in effect educated him, and thus enabled his subsequent, often quite interesting political career.

Answer: Dwight David Eisenhower

Grandfatherly, smiling "Ike" was so popular in the fifties he could have had an affair with Eleanor Roosevelt, and no one would have thought the worse of him (except for Westbrook Pegler). He did have a long and loving marriage to his wife Mamie, and in light of the White House dalliances that preceded and followed his presidency (FDR before; JFK after), one can hardly condemn Eisenhower strongly for what seems to have been a largely platonic "affair."