Life after the White House

What did his predecessors do?
In the earlier days of the republic, presidents mostly just went home and took it easy. George Washington tended his plantation at Mount Vernon and distilled whisky. John Adams returned to farming and corresponded with Thomas Jefferson. But Franklin Pierce found himself at wit's end and deeply miserable. "After the White House," he complained before dying of cirrhosis of the liver, "what is there to do but drink?"

Were some more productive?
Undoubtedly. In his ostensible retirement, Jefferson not only built the University of Virginia but also turned inventor and is credited with inventing both the swivel chair and the dumbwaiter. John Quincy Adams continued in politics, spending 18 distinguished years in Congress. And William Howard Taft got himself named chief justice of the US. But they were exceptions, not the rule. It is only in recent decades that most ex-presidents have felt some need to be seen to be doing something.

And what accounts for the change in their attitude?
Partly the growth in life expectancy (ex-presidents now have to keep themselves busy not just for years but for decades after leaving office); and partly the explosion in media/political commentary which has made these men increasingly concerned about how history will view them. Richard Nixon started the trend. Having resigned in disgrace in the wake of Watergate, he was determined to rehabilitate himself for posterity. So he wrote thick books about history and diplomacy, travelled the world for high-level meetings with foreign leaders, established a presidential library in California, and consulted frequently with his Oval Office successors. By the time he died, in 1994, Nixon had largely reinvented himself as the elder statesman of US foreign policy.

What have his successors done?
They've generally tried to burnish their historical legacies by casting themselves as humanitarians. Jimmy Carter, widely regarded as a poor president while in office, has transformed his reputation through his work with the Carter Centre in Atlanta: he promotes human rights, monitors elections around the world, and tries to bring peace to the Middle East and other hot-spots, sometimes to the dismay of his successors. Bill Clinton has established his namesake foundation to address such global concerns as Aids, poverty and climate change.

Do ex-presidents get a kiss-off?
They certainly do. The Former Presidents Act of 1958 provides them with a taxable pension equal to the annual rate of basic pay for the head of an executive department (currently about $200,000). That pension begins the minute a president departs office at noon on Inauguration Day, January 20. They also get a host of other allowances. In 2008, for example, each surviving ex-president received $96,000 for staff salaries, a subsidy for telephone bills (rising from $10,000 for Carter to $79,000 for Clinton) and a payment for renting office space ($102,000 for Carter, $516,000 for Clinton). So in 2008, from public funds alone, Carter received $518,000 and Clinton $1,162,000. And that does not include the cost of lifetime protection by the Secret Service for former presidents who entered office before 1997. (Thanks to a law passed in 1997, George W Bush and all subsequent presidents will only receive protection for 10 years after the date of leaving office.)

And was it ever thus?
No. Ex-presidents have only recently been guaranteed financial security. Jefferson died $107,000 in debt. When Harry Truman left the White House, he had to take out a bank loan to tide him over in private life. He had no official government income or support except for his army pension of $112.56 a month. Yet he turned down every lucrative consulting gig and endorsement offer that came his way. "I could never lend myself to any transaction, however respectable," he declared, "that would commercialise on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency."

Who was responsible for changing that ethos?
Gerald Ford. He was the first to prove that having 'President of the United States' on your résumé could be enormously profitable. After he left office, in 1977, Ford hired a William Morris agent and quickly cashed in, giving paid speeches and personal appearances, narrating documentaries, and joining some 20 corporate boards. By the mid-1980s he was earning $1.7m a year. Suddenly, an ex-presidency was big business. Ronald Reagan grossed nearly $2m annually for his speeches. George HW Bush pulled in $4m on the lecture circuit. Bill Clinton, though, has taken the moneymaking ability of ex-presidents to a new level. When he left office he was $12m in debt for legal fees over various investigations. But since then, thanks to thousands of speeches, lucrative consulting jobs, book advances and royalties, he and Hillary have earned more than $100m.

And is there anything wrong with that?
Many critics think so. "We've gotten to know our presidents through their careers in public service," said Brian Flanagan of the Hauenstein Centre for Presidential Studies in Michigan. "People can feel betrayed when they see a former president in a different light, cashing in on their celebrity." Clinton's defenders note that he donates about 80 per cent of his speaking fees to his foundation (which leaves plenty left over, since he gives more than 100 speeches every year) and that a man of his talents could have earned far more in the private sector than he did as president. So why not play a little catch-up? "We've come a long way from Harry Truman," says former Clinton adviser Leon Panetta. "A lot of people who have devoted their lives to public service, who lived hand-to-mouth during months of public service, are suddenly able, after public life, to find some rewards." ·