As for US presidents’ scholarly achievements, they varied widely.

Thomas Jefferson fell in the category of a polymath: architect, inventor, author etc. His books form the core of the world’s largest library, the Library of Congress.

Jefferson was the original “shopaholic” — when stationed as a diplomat in Paris, he bought thousands of books, as well as costly scientific instruments and fine art of all kinds. Eventually, this costly trove of the high culture of the day was shipped back to the relatively uncultured city of Philadelphia in about 80 packing cases. Decades later, Congress purchased Jefferson’s book collection for about 28,000.

As for Presidential authors, many Americans of the WWII generation will have read John F. Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Profiles in Courage.”

It’s a book of short biographies of American statesmen who sacrificed their political careers because of their ethical principles. But, that book doesn’t really count because it probably was written by one of JFK’s political aides and speechwriters, Ted Sorenson.

Herbert Hoover was a mining engineer, mining investor and mining technologists. He wrote his own manual of mining and translated a 15th-century Latin book on mining into English. Hoover’s career made him a millionaire several times over but wasn’t necessarily good for people he dealt with. For example, one of his business ventures was supplying Chines laborers for South African mines, where they worked under terrible conditions.

Other American Presidents have been college professors; most of those have been Democrats. Woodrow Wilson was a PhD in political science and history, who rose to become president of Princeton University. He dramatically expanded that university.

Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were law professors.

The last US president who lacked university degree was Harry Truman. However, many detractors of George W. Bush express astonishment that he was able to graduate from Yale with an undergraduate degree and Harvard with an MBA (which likely says as about the flexible standards at those schools as it does about Bush’s learning skills, or lack thereof).

Not many countries combine the (sordid) role of national political leader with the (exalted) role of head of state, as the US does. Many of those that do are outright dictatorships run by strongmen.

As for US presidential authors, Presidential Ulysses S Grant’s memoirs stand out as the best of the lot, for the direct style and candor. He wrote them at the very end of his life, when he was dying of cancer of the jaw (don’t smoke cigars! or just don’t smoke, period!). and did the writing, with the encouragement of Mark Twain, to assure his family’s financial future. I’ve read those memoirs twice. They are particularly interesting when they describe Grant’s actions in the Mexican War. He opposed the war, which he considered a dishonorable act of conquest entered into on manufactured pretexts. But, he followed orders and won distinction in battle during that war.

JFK may not have been as good a writer as his speeches and books make him out to be. But: check his Presidential campaign speech about the separation of church and state, which should be posted on the walls of the House and and Senate chambers as well as in the Oval Office, to deter people from mixing the two functions.

And JFK could deliver a good joke (though, not as well as Lincoln). Once, when Kennedy had gathered the leading intellectual lights of the country for a state dinner, including several Nobel- and Pulitzer-Prize winners. Kennedy at that state dinner that the White House had never seen such an august gathering of wisdom except when Thomas Jefferson dined alone!

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