1965 - The Library of Presidential Papers is incorporated under the Education Law of the State of New York by entrepreneur Henry O. Dormann and several New York business leaders “to house originals or copies of Presidential Papers of all the Presidents of the United States and of such other papers of historical interest as may deem advisable.”
1969 - The Library is reincorporated as the Center for the Study of the Presidency by Dr. R. Gordon Hoxie, a historian and Chancellor of Long Island University, who became the first President of the Center, and Arthur T. Roth, Board Vice Chair at Long Island University, who became the first Chairman of the Center's Board of Trustees. Inspired by Dwight Eisenhower's call for programs on the American Presidency for "students old and young…characterized by accuracy, objectivity and perspective," the Center began educating young leaders and examining public policy issues that required Presidential consideration and action.
1969 - Dr. R. Gordon Hoxie organizes the first Annual Student Symposium, held in Washington, to educate college students on the American Presidency. In time, the symposia would grow to three days of panel presentations and discussions on various facets of the American Presidency.
1970 - Following the tragic shootings at Jackson State and Kent State, the Center founds its unique Center Fellows Program. In following decades, the number of Fellows grows from 20 to 85, and each Fellow is required to research, write and deliver an original paper on the modern Presidency.
1970 - The Center publishes the first issue of Presidential Studies Quarterly, the only scholarly
journal that focuses on the President of the United States. PSQ features peer-reviewed articles,
special features, review essays, and book reviews covering Presidential decision making; the operations
of the White House; Presidential relations with Congress, the courts, the bureaucracy, the public, and
the press; and the President's involvement in public policy issues in both the domestic and international arenas.
1970 - The Center bestows the first Distinguished Public Service Medal — later, the Publius Award — among future recipients were President Gerald R. Ford; Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., and Richard Cheney; Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; Chiefs of Staff Howard Baker, Leon Panetta, Donald Regan, and Thomas ‘Mack’ McLarty; Senate Leader Bill Frist; Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan, George Mitchell, Sam Nunn, Nancy Kassebaum, John Breaux, Richard Lugar, Charles Robb, John McCain, Chuck Hagel, John D. Rockefeller IV, Robert Dole and Elizabeth Dole; Federal Reserve Chairmen Arthur Burns and Alan Greenspan; Secretaries Colin Powell, Caspar Weinberger, Alexis Herman, Tom Ridge, Cyrus Vance, Ronald Brown; and Presidential advisor David Gergen.
1971 - The Center publishes The White House: Organization and Operation, based on the
1970 Montauk Symposium, whose participants included Thomas G. Corcoran,
Gordon Gray, Francis Horn, Peter Lisagor, William Casey, Louis W. Koenig
and Robert Semple, Jr. A second volume, The Presidency of the 1970s,
presented the views of Presidential scholars, historians and practitioners
on the cease-fire agreement for Vietnam, Nixon’s visit to China and the
perilous state of the American economy.
1977 - The Center publishes R. Gordon Hoxie’s Command Decisions and the Presidency, with a foreword by President Gerald R. Ford on national security policy and organization.
1980s - The Center invites White House Interns to participate with its Fellows in the Spring Symposium,
which attracts as many as 500 students from across the country. White House Interns offer insight into
day-to-day operations, while the Center Fellows present their research on the modern Presidency.
1984 - The Center publishes The Presidency and National Security Policy, a collection of essays edited by R.Gordon Hoxie that includes such authors as George Shultz, Caspar W. Weinberger, Robert C. McFarlane, M. Peter McPherson, Henry Rowen, Brent Scowcroft and John W. Vessey, Jr.
1989 - The Center publishes The Presidency in Transition, edited by R. Gordon Hoxie, with articles by Frank Carlucci, Kenneth Duberstein, C. Boyen Gray, Stephen Hess, Edwin Meese III, Walter F. Mondale, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Charles Wick.
1993 - The Center launches a White House Lecture Series featuring Presidential scholars who discuss the evolution of the Presidency and compare and contrast leadership styles. Speakers include David Gergen, former Counselor to the President; Alexis Herman, Assistant to the President and Director, Office of Public Liaison; and James Lee Witt, Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among others.
1999 - The Center moves to Washington, D.C., and soon adds Dr. David M. Abshire, former U. S. Ambassador
to NATO and Special Counselor to President Reagan, as its president. Under Dr. Abshire, the Center seeks
to study, inform, and advise the federal government in addition to educating young leaders.
2000 - The section of the first one-hundred days of the Presidents from FDR to George H.W. Bush, which appeared in the Center’s Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency: Seventy-Six Case Studies in Presidential Leadership, is released to candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush in a tightly fought election that required a decision by the Supreme Court. Companion volumes such as Advancing Innovation and In Harms Way: Intervention and Prevention examine, respectively, science policy and military interventions and nation building.
2001 - Already at the press on September 11th, the Center sharpens its warnings in the preface to Comprehensive Strategic Reform: A Panel Report to the President and Congress that national leaders must strategically rethink our national interests in the post-Cold War world.
2002 - CSP expands Presidential Fellows program from 20 to 45 Fellows, while Donald Marron and James Moffett create awards for Presidential Fellows who excel, respectively, in historical analyses and the modern Presidency.
2002
- Future Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge reads CSP material and agrees
to a CSP proposal to reach out to think tanks, universities, and security
experts. A series of roundtables are conducted in the following months in
the CSP boardroom and a database of articles related to homeland security
is created with the help of Oracle.
2003 - The Center holds a national conference on U.S.-Muslim relations, publishing the proceedings as An Initiative: Strengthening U.S-Muslim Communications. The Center also launches its Presidential Fellowships, which encourage individuals and corporations to sponsor a Fellow from one of the 100 universities and colleges now participating in the program.
2004 - The Center drafts and circulates its Declaration for Civility and Inclusive Leadership, which more than 185 national leaders sign. Also, Congress mandates that the Center develop a business plan for a Foundation for International Understanding, which, once operational, will fund video, television, Internet and other media projects aimed at presenting more accurately America’s culture, history and institutions, while opening the door to greater U.S. understanding of other cultures.
2005 - The Vice President encourages the Center to continue its efforts to better organize research to detect smuggled nuclear weapons. The Secretary of State cites the Center’s President, Dr. Abshire, as a source of guidance on public diplomacy.
2005 - Presidential Fellows Program grows to 85 outstanding young leaders.
2006 - At the request of Congressman Frank Wolf, the Center works with three other think tanks to establish and staff the Iraq Study Group (ISG). A bipartisan commission chaired by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former 9/11 Commission Co-Chair and retired Congressman Lee Hamilton, the ISG members conducted extensive, confidential interviews with current and former government officials, military leaders, diplomats from several nations, and regional experts and traveled to Iraq in preparation to make final recommendations to Congress and the White House.
