Presidents in Crisis: Tough Decisions inside the White House from Truman to Obama

By Michael K. Bohn

A behind-the-scenes look into the minds of modern American presidents in troubling times, and a “fascinating study of how presidents handle crises” (Jonathan Karl, Chief White House Correspondent for ABC News).
 
When faced with a crisis, every American president longs to take bold and decisive action. When American lives or vital interests are at stake, the public—and especially the news media and political opponents—expect aggressive leadership. But contrary to the dramatizations of Hollywood, rarely does a president have that option.
 
In Presidents in Crisis, a former Director of the White House Situation Room takes the reader into the halls of power during seventeen grave international emergencies handled by presidents from Harry Truman to Barack Obama: from North Korea’s invasion of South Korea to the revolutions of the Arab Spring, and from the thirteen days of the Cuban Missile Crisis to the taking of American diplomats hostage in Iran and George W. Bush’s response to the attacks of September 11, 2001.
 
In narratives that convey the drama of unfolding events and the stakes of confrontation when a misstep can mean catastrophe, Bohn “takes us to the molten core of presidential crisis management, revealing why the person on the White House–end of the famous 3 a.m. phone call can seem like the loneliest person on earth” (James Kitfield, Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781628724752