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Eisenhower had the clearest blue eyes. He would fix them on you. In my every interview with him, he would lock his eyes on to mine and keep them there.

Eisenhower was my war hero and the President I admire and respect most.

When I was a kid, Eisenhower had been President forever, and all of a sudden, everything in the world was all about Jack Kennedy. I was 12, interested in politics; my father was from Massachusetts, had an accent like Kennedy.

FDR had a certain charisma, at least in his first term, with the big grin, the cigarette holder at a jaunty angle, and the battered hat on his imposing head, but no other American president since then has had it except JFK - indeed, some of them have been positively anti-charismatic, like Gerald Ford, Carter, and the Bushes.

Once Dwight Eisenhower makes up his mind, he's full of indecision.

He had a face like a blessing.

Peking welcomed me with tremendous parades and gun salutes. The people with me are proud of me, proud that our downtrodden country has taken its place among the great nations. And now, people of America, I ask you, why didn't Eisenhower accord me the same respect?

I don't hear a lot about elected officials that are men talking about whether they smile a lot. My dad was in elected office my entire life. I don't remember many smiles, and nobody commented about it. He was serious about his job, and so am I.

I think Ronald Reagan was one of the great presidents, period, not just recently. I thought he had the demeanor. I thought he had the bearing. I thought he had the thought process.