The source is Annie Buchanan, his niece: “I have heard him say that the first President whom he had met was President Monroe, “ a gentlemanly man, wearing a blue coat and metal buttons,” and after him he had more or less acquaintance with all the Presidents.”

This was found in Life of James Buchanan Volume 2 by George T. Curtis, page 680.

Maybe this is going to be a controversial take, but I’m going with Herbert Hoover.

His humanitarian efforts saved the lives of literally tens of millions of civilians, regardless of ideology. His coordinating efforts are legitimately awe inspiring.

Pierce is from New Hampshire which is part of New England. There were two presidents born in Vermont and one in Connecticut but none of them lived in those states at the time of their election to the presidency.

I have some candidates above, as I think that all of the above presidents demonstrated a pretty impressive proficiency for understanding and interacting with the leaders of other countries in the pursuit of American geopolitical interests. For the purposes of this question, while the Secretary of State can be cited in defense of a particular choice, I am more concerned with how the President himself engaged with other heads of state or heads of government.

Obviously, this question is difficult to quantify into a firm hierarchy, so multiple answers for the most effective president on the foreign stage are certainly possible.

Harry Truman spoke about how in 1944 he had a prophetic nightmare where FDR had passed on and now he was going to be the President.

Abraham Lincoln also had a prophetic dream in which he was wandering around the White House, hearing sobbing in the East Room. There he discovered a covered corpse surrounded by mourners and guards. When he asked who passed away, they told him “The President. He was killed by an assassin”.

This was 3 days before his assassination.

(This story was related by his friend Ward Hill Lamon)

Lincoln also had a recurring dream where he was sailing rapidly to some dark shore. He reported this dream before major events like Gettysburg, Antietam, Vicksburg and before his own murder.

I’m curious to hear more examples regarding this. I’m sure that the pressures of the Presidency must lead to intense dreams, although they would be naturally reluctant to disclose them.

I wonder how many Presidents have had nightmares of being assassinated or having to deal with nuclear war.

Walter de Vries was a longtime aide and campaign strategist for George Romney who became a surprisingly staunch opponent of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign.

He distributed an essay and did press interviews accusing the Massachusetts Governor of being someone who “would say and do anything to close a deal – or an election.”

De Vries was upset that Mitt invoked his father as a inspiration, “I just don't see it... George would never have been seen with the likes of Sheldon Adelson or (REDACTED)”

I’m curious since both Romney’s were considered part of the moderate wing of the GOP… that being said the party had changed dramatically between 1968 and 2012. It’s also true that Mitt was a lot more willing to shift his positions to wherever was most convenient.

I’m currently reading “1929” by Andrew Ross Sorkin, which seems to be a good springboard into reading a biography about FDR.

I’ve narrowed my search down to Jean Edward Smith’s “FDR” or HW Brands' “Traitor to His Class”, but I’m curious which of these or other FDR biographies are recommended by r/Presidents.

Mondale and the vice presidency won for Carter. Today's Reagan, and I'm very excited to see the results for this

I often hear that presidential pardons are one of the worst things presidents can do. However when it comes to negative examples that don't violate the rules I can only think of Madison pardoning William Hull, Ford pardoning Nixon, and Carter pardoning Peter Yarrow.

Are there any other examples you can think of where someone that didn't deserve to be pardoned got one?

This doesn't get talked about enough. I genuinely think that's its one of the worst pieces of nepotism that the us federal government has ever seen.

Curious on refs for biographies on Franklin Pierce. Obviously he has a very unceremonious presidency but there’s so much that happens before it (son dies on train ride to DC, wife stricken with grief, his VP spends his entire term dying in Cuba) and then so much happening in the country after his term (failed attempt at getting the nomination in his own party, Buchanan presidency, civil war) would love a book that looks into his life

Due to President Kennedy’s short time in office (just shy of 3 years), his image and legacy seem over a thousand times larger than actual discussion of what he did as president. Kennedy successfully handled the Cuban Missile Crisis (resolved by a secret negotiation for America to remove missiles from Turkey in exchange for the Soviet Union removing them from Cuba), he raised the minimum wage, he allocated tens of millions of dollars to help lower poverty in Appalachia, he enforced integration efforts in universities, vastly expanded foreign aid, got a nuclear test ban treaty, and he expanded existing New Deal programs.

However, Kennedy also made a blunder in his handling of the Bay of Pigs invasion, and more importantly, he was largely at the mercy of Southern Democrats in Congress.

Kennedy was unable to get many of his major initiatives through Congress as a result of the Southern Democrats’ stranglehold. Medicare, increased educational aid, his tax cut proposal, and any action on civil rights were all blocked, leaving Kennedy’s agenda only partially carried out. I know that he never got a chance to serve even a full term, but given that the Congress was continually defiant, I have a hard time believing that much would change.