"You have had presidential candidates over the last 30 years who would have had a very hard time getting nominated under the old system. One example is John Kennedy." -- Michael Beschloss
Michael Richard Beschloss (born November 30, 1955) is an American historian. A specialist in the United States presidency, he is the author of nine books.
"As parties began to develop around the turn of the 19th century, you had party nominees for President nominated in caucuses made up of party members in Congress.""First of all, there's no mention of political parties in the Constitution, so you begin American history with not only no political conventions but also no parties.""From the beginning of the presidential nominating conventions in the 1830's really through the 1950's, you had conventions that actually did real business.""Oftentimes during the period in which conventions really did business, you had situations where the delegates were divided and you would have ballot after ballot before there was a final nominee.""So if 1960 had occurred under the old convention system, Kennedy would have had a very hard time getting the Democratic nomination because he would have been rejected by all those people who had worked with him in Washington.""So the result was that as one approached a political convention for most of the 19th century and for most of the 20th century until the 1960's, part of the drama was the fact that you didn't know ultimately who was going to be the nominee at the end of that convention week.""The founders were very worried that if parties developed in America, you might have something like the modern Italian system, where you have 20 different parties that divide Congress and the country and can't govern.""The Founding Fathers would be sorry to see that America had become so divided and factionalized.""Then you get to the last half of the 20th century, Americans are getting very skeptical about their leaders and their institutions, and another place that is affected is parties and conventions.""To people who remember JFK's assassination, JFK Jr. will probably always be that boy saluting his father's coffin."
Beschloss was born in Chicago, grew up in Flossmoor, Illinois and was educated at Eaglebrook School, Andover, Williams College and Harvard University. He majored in political science, working under James MacGregor Burns at Williams, from which he was graduated with Highest Honors, and earned an MBA at Harvard Business School, with the original intention of writing history while serving as a foundation executive.
Beschloss is a regular commentator on the PBS NewsHour and is the NBC News Presidential Historian. He is a trustee of the White House Historical Association and the National Archives Foundation and he also sits on the boards of the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He was formerly a trustee of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello), the Urban Institute and the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. He also sits on the advisory board to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and is a former member of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships. He has served as a historian at the Smithsonian Institution, a Senior Associate Member at St. Antony's College (University of Oxford), a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard University Russian Research Center, a Senior Fellow of the Annenberg Foundation and a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College.
He received an Emmy in 2005 for the Discovery Channel's "Decisions That Shook the World." He has also received the Williams College Bicentennial Medal, the State of Illinois's Order of Lincoln, the Harry S. Truman Public Service Award, the Ambassador Book Prize and the New York State Archives History Award. He has received honorary doctorates from Lafayette College, Williams College, St. Mary's College of Maryland, Saint Peter's College and Governors State University.
Beschloss is married to Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss, who is President and CEO of The Rock Creek Group, a Washington, DC, hedge fund, former treasurer and chief investment officer of the World Bank, and a current trustee of the Ford Foundation and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Mr. and Mrs. Beschloss are advisory board members of Resources for Inner City Children.
Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How they Changed America, 1789-1989 (2007) was a New York Times bestseller for several months and was a #1 Washington Post bestseller.
The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945 (2002) was a New York Times bestseller for several months.
Taking Charge (1997) and Reaching for Glory (2001), edited transcriptions of Lyndon Johnson's conversations, as captured by his taping system, with historical annotation and commentary. A third Johnson volume is forthcoming.
Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance (1980); started as Beschloss's Senior Honors Thesis at Williams College.
The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963 (1991)
At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War (1993); with Strobe Talbott.
Eisenhower: A Centennial Life (1990)
Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev and the U-2 Affair (1986)
