Photos: Oval Office Secrets from Truman to Obama

Franklin Roosevelt, left, and Harry Truman, shown here in 1944, had little to do with each other in the White House—which meant that Truman took office in April, 1945 with very little preparation. “I’m not big enough,” Truman said to a Senate friend the day after Roosevelt died. “I’m not big enough for this job.” ... Which is one reason he would reach out to an unlikely ally for help.   Dwight D. Eisenhower, Truman and Herbert Hoover were all honored at Princeton in 1947. Though Hoover and Ike were the two Republicans, Truman and Hoover would become the closer friends, after working closely together to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Europe following World War II—a cross-party alliance common among members During Truman’s presidency, he and Eisenhower got along famously, reorganizing the armed forces after the war, and building a new Western security structure. Ike would be a crucial ally in selling a reluctant Republican congress on the idea of NATO and a permanent U.S. military presence in Europe. By inauguration day, 1953 the relationship between Truman and Eisenhower was nowhere near so friendly as this picture suggests. Though they had once been friends, the 1952 campaign changed everything. Truman was furious that Eisenhower failed to defend his great mentor George Marshall against the attacks of Sen. Joe McCarthy The modern Presidents Club was founded on the platform at Eisenhower’s inauguration in January. After seven years of working very effectively, and sometimes secretly, together, Harry Truman greeted Herbert Hoover on the platform. “I think we ought to organize a former presidents club,” Hoover suggested. Richard Nixon, right, shown here in 1957, served Eisenhower loyally as vice-president. But when it was Nixon’s turn to run in 1960, Ike could not have been less enthusiastic. He made it clear he had other GOP candidates he preferred. He refused to endorse Nixon before the Republican convention. once Nixon’s nomination was Eisenhower, center, worked well with Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, third right, throughout his presidency. “Us three Texans got to stand together,” Johnson and House Speaker Sam Rayburn used to tease Ike. This helped explain how a Republican president with no legislative background got 83 percent of his program Eisenhower and Kennedy did not have a very high opinion of each other going into the 1960 race: Ike would privately refer to Kennedy as “that young whippersnapper.” But once Kennedy won, Eisenhower was eager to get him ready for the job, whose complexity, Ike feared, Kennedy did not begin to fathom. They met twice during Ike and Kennedy sat together at Kennedy’s inauguration, as did Johnson and Nixon, foreground. Kennedy began tending the club from the very first day. The first letter he dictated was to Eisenhower, thanking him for all his help. “I am sure that your generous assistance has made this one of the most effective transitions in At his inaugural lunch, Kennedy asked Truman to sign his program. Truman would be the first visitor to the White House, where Ike had never invited him. After dinner they walked around the grounds. At the entrance to the East Wing, they paused in front of the gold-lettered dedication on the wall commemorating the Truman Less than four months after the inauguration, Kennedy would find himself facing the kind of test that typically inspired Presidents to enlist each other’s help. The botched Bay of Pigs invasion was an epic disaster for the new president. So on the Saturday after the invasion, he arranged to rendezvous with Ike at Camp David From the minute Lyndon Johnson, right, took office after Kennedy’s murder, he reached out to Eisenhower for support. “I have needed you for a long time,” Johnson told him that night, “but I need you more than ever now.” “Any time you need me, Mr. President,” Ike said, “I’ll be there.” Ike visited with Johnson at Bethesda Naval hospital after an operation in 1966. As the Vietnam war loomed ever larger, Johnson came to rely on Eisenhower’s advice, asking him to make up cover stories to come to Washington so they could quietly consult. He told Ike at one point, “you’re the best Chief of Staff I’ve Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford did not much like each other, especially after their bitter 1976 campaign. But in 1981, they found themselves trapped together with Nixon in the cramped cabin of a 707 for 16 hours, en route to the funeral of murdered Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. on the flight home, they made peace; “We found,” “One of the important jobs of our exclusive trade union,” Herbert Hoover wrote to Harry Truman in 1957, “is preserving libraries.” And indeed designing—and funding—their presidential libraries is a major club activity. Here presidents Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford and Nixon all assembled in 1991 to mark the dedication Another decade, another library: in 2004, both Presidents Bush joined Clinton and Carter for Clinton’s library dedication in Little Rock, Ark. Bush senior and Clinton got lost in conversation and fell far behind the main party of dignitaries. At one point, eager to eat lunch and then leave, George W. Bush sent a search party Bill Clinton never knew his biological father; but President George H.W. Bush became a virtual one as the two men bonded over their work together raising funds for tsunami relief and Hurricane Katrina. Bush would pester Clinton about watching his health after his heart surgery. Clinton spent weekends with the Bushes in Maine President George W. Bush invited the entire Club membership to lunch at the White House to meet Obama before the inauguration in January, 2009. “We want you to succeed,” he told Obama. “Whether we’re Democrat or Republican, we all care deeply about this country. . . . All of us who have served in this office understand Obama enlisted both Clinton and Bush to help raise money for Haitian relief after the earthquake. Originally Clinton reached out to Bush 41, with whom he had worked on tsunami relief and Hurricane Katrina. But the elder man, now 85, begged off. Talk to my son, he said. I’m too old; it’s George’s turn. The three met at the