No country for old men?

Wilson, Reagan, Biden, Trump

Woodrow Wilson had been suffering from high blood pressure for years when he undertook a strenuous train journey to generate support for the treaty that would end World War I and establish the United States as a charter member of the League of Nations. Wilson had spent months in Paris negotiating the treaty. Its intricate provisions depended on American participation in the League, which Wilson considered his great contribution to the cause of world peace.

The treaty, signed at Versailles, and the League had received a skeptical reception in the Senate, which would have to ratify the pact. The resistance was what prompted Wilson to take his case to the country. In cities and towns, in auditoriums and at railroad stations, Wilson for days and weeks expounded the absolute necessity of Senate ratification and America’s assumption of responsibility for world order.

The effort broke his health. In Colorado he suffered a severe stroke. His doctor ordered him to return at once to Washington, where he experienced another stroke. The sequence of episodes incapacitated him, confining him to his bedroom in the White House, from which he communicated only through his wife and doctor.

During his incapacity, the Versailles treaty came to a vote in the Senate. Wilson’s allies, recognizing the treaty’s peril, pleaded with him to make concessions to senators who might thereby be persuaded to vote in favor. In the first years of his presidency, Wilson had shown himself to be an able negotiator; now, with his perceptions impaired by his seclusion and his flexibility diminished by his neurological condition, he refused to budge.

The treaty was defeated. The United States never joined the League of Nations. The world stumbled through two decades of chaos before descending into World War II.

Wilson was sixty-three at the time of his stroke in Colorado. 

Ronald Reagan was seventy-three when he campaigned for reelection against Walter Mondale in 1984. In the first of two debates, Reagan performed uncharacteristically poorly. He lost his train of thought and repeated himself. Even Reagan’s supporters wondered what was happening. The Reagan-friendly Wall Street Journal ran a long article headlined: ''Is Oldest U.S. President Showing His Age? Reagan Debate Performance Invites Open Speculation on His Ability to Serve.''

Reagan survived the health scare sufficiently to win reelection, but the age issue reemerged during his second term. In 1986 Americans learned that members of the Reagan administration had surreptitiously been selling weapons to Iran and using the proceeds to fund activities of right-wing rebels, called contras, in Nicaragua. The Iran-contra operation violated American law and Reagan’s own stated policies, and it gravely embarrassed the United States and Reagan himself.

Reagan repeatedly claimed lack of knowledge of what had been done in his name. These statements were contradicted by entries in his diary, which recorded plainly that the president knew of the operation. The diary was published only years later, but even at the time Reagan’s claims of ignorance were ascribed by many to the forgetfulness that often comes with age. When, after leaving office, Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the forgetfulness explanation seemed all the more plausible. Considering the number and gravity of the violations in the Iran-contra scandal, Reagan emerged relatively unscathed. Many attributed this to the unwillingness of Reagan’s opponents to be seen as beating up on a tired old man.

A similar explanation has been given by Robert Hur, special counsel to the Justice Department, for not pursuing charges against Joe Biden for mishandling classified documents related to his vice-presidency. In his report to the attorney general, Hur wrote, “At trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Hur’s statement was often reported slightly out of context. He said that Biden would “present himself” as elderly and forgetful, not that he was elderly and forgetful. Elsewhere in the report Hur cited Biden statements indicating that the then-vice-president had indeed forgotten about some documents he had brought home from his office, but the forgetfulness was characterized in that part of the report as the kind of thing that could happen to any busy person with lots to think about.

Yet Biden critics latched onto the “elderly man with a poor memory” tag. And when Biden, in a news conference rebutting the description, mixed up Egypt and Mexico, the distinction between what Hur said and what he was reported to have said didn’t seem to matter.

The question remains: Is Biden, at eighty-one, too old for the job? The same question can be put to Donald Trump,  seventy-seven. What does the record of previous elderly presidents—in particular Wilson and Reagan—suggest?

Wilson’s experience indicates that age-related failing health can be a serious detriment. A healthy Wilson quite possibly would have either won over the Senate to ratification of the Versailles treaty as written or would have given the moderate dissenters what they needed to come aboard. And if the United States had ratified the treaty and joined the League of Nations, the history of the next thirty years might have been very different. A League that included the United States would have offered more serious resistance to the aggressive program of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan.

Reagan’s experience is more ambiguous. A sharper Reagan might not have let the Iran-contra shenanigans take place. On the other hand, a sharper Reagan might have been better at covering up the shenanigans. Moreover, the same Reagan who presided over Iran-contra negotiated historic arms-control agreements with the Soviet Union. The big embarrassments of Reagan’s second term were accompanied by major achievements.

The lesson in all this is that any president or potential president is a package deal, comprising strengths and weaknesses. Age can weaken memory but it can enhance wisdom. On balance, wisdom matters more. Presidents don’t have to think on their feet; they don’t need facts at their fingertips. They make their decisions sitting down—or at least they should—and with aides to brief them. Steadiness of gait looks good on camera, but it says nothing about a president’s insight. Stamina is impressive on the campaign trail, but it has nothing to do with judgment.

Biden isn’t too old to be president. That is, Biden's age by itself doesn't disqualify him to be president. Would he be a better president if he were younger? Not necessarily. He might be spryer, but he might be more rash. Comparable considerations apply to Trump.

The ability to make sound decisions is the defining trait of a good president. There's little evidence that this declines with age. If you don't like a candidate, you've got to come up with a better reason than date of birth.