Time magazine editors Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy chart relationships among the men who have occupied the White House since the mid 20th century. This is the first history of the private relationships among modern American presidents – their backroom deals, rescue missions, secret alliances, and enduring rivalries. The Presidents Club is a complicated place: its members are bound forever by the experience of the Oval Office and yet are eternal rivals for history’s favor. Among their secrets: How Jack Kennedy turned to Dwight Eisenhower (whom he once called “that old asshole”) for advice following the Bay of Pigs fiasco. How Ike quietly helped Reagan win his first race in 1966. How Richard Nixon conspired with Lyndon Johnson to get elected and then betrayed him. How Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter turned a deep enmity into an alliance. The letter from Nixon that Bill Clinton rereads every year. The unspoken pact between a father and son named Bush. The roots of the rivalry between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. And how perhaps the closest of all relationships was between Clinton and Bush I, a friendship birthed by a tsunami. The Presidents Club gives an inside look at how very lonely the presidency can be – and how, time and again, the men who sit in that chair forge alliances with their predecessors (friend and foe alike) that are good for both the country and their own sanity. A must read for anyone interested in the presidency.