The Last Campaign

The Last Campaign, published in 2015, examines what presidents do to keep us from knowing what presidents do: skewed history, self-commemoration, the influence of private money and political organizations, and more than a hundred years to open the records, or what really happened. Anthony Clark recounts his attempts, as a private citizen and as a senior Congressional staffer, to rein in the system’s worst abuses. Unrestrained commemoration, unregulated—and undisclosed—contributions, and unchecked partisan politics have radically altered the look and purpose of presidential libraries. They have changed from impartial archives of history into extravagant, legacy-building showplaces where the goals of former presidents, their families, financial donors, and the national parties trump accuracy and the (often inconvenient) facts. Using records examined over more than twelve years of research and more than 30 research trips to all 13 presidential libraries, the National Archives, and other sources, Clark narrates the ways presidents rewrite history. And how their private, political foundations use government institutions to raise millions of dollars for political purposes. Americans deserve fair and accurate history in the libraries for which we pay; history based on records, not politics. But while presidents run for posterity, dedicating their self-congratulatory museums an average of four years after leaving office, the records that show what actually happened won’t be opened for more than a hundred years…unless we do something, and reform our presidential library system.