While the very best Presidents are able to draw from a plethora of talents to help them discharge the duties of the highest office in the land, one characteristic stands head and shoulder above the rest. Intelligence. An IQ score might only be a rough indicator of human intelligence but as it stands, it’s the best we’ve got. To date, Donald Trump has refused to release his IQ score though sources suggest that he believes it to be tremendously massive.
George W Bush
IQ: 124
Surprisingly, to those who remember the 43rd President as a man who stumbled over every second syllable, Bush’s IQ is equivalent to that of the average college graduate.
- He led The U.S. into a disastrous war with Iraq, a war that ultimately cost the lives of at least 163,453 Iraqi civilians and over 4000 U.S.troops.
- He also presided over the 2007/2008 financial crisis, a snafu that eventually removed almost $20 trillion worth of household wealth.
- He was elected by the lowest popular vote margin since Benjamin Harrison’s win in 1888. Depending on how you count it, he didn’t even actually win.
Gerald Ford
IQ: 127
The only U.S. President to never have been elected Ford took over from Nixon after he stepped down in the face of an almost inevitable impeachment.
- He was the first president to be appointed under the terms of the 25th amendment. His predecessor, Spiro Agnew, resigned from the vice presidency position in 1973 after being charged with tax evasion.
- Ford issued a full and unconditional pardon to Richard Nixon on September 8 1974.
- He also issued a conditional amnesty to those Americans who had fled abroad in order to escape being drafted into the U.S. military.
Herbert Hoover
IQ: 129.77
A brilliant engineer and not so brilliant president, Hoover was on point when the stock market crashed in 1929 and proved unable, or perhaps even ideologically unwilling, to do anything to stem the tide of the Great Depression.
- The Boulder Dam was controversially re-named the Hoover dam in honor of President Hoover.
- Hoover is one of only two presidents to have neither previously held elected office nor served as a general. The other is William Taft.
- Franklin Roosevelt defeated him by a landslide in the 1932 general election.
Ronald Reagan
IQ: 130
Reagan personified the entire 1980’s with his drive to deregulate the economy, cut public spending and provide vast tax cuts for the rich.
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In what he thought was a sound check during his weekly radio address to the nation back in 1984, Reagan casually said:
“My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I have signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”
- At congressional hearings over the Iran-Contra affair, Reagan uttered the phrase I do not recall or words to that effect, no fewer than 124 times.
- In 1947 Reagan appeared before the House of Un-American Activities Committee as a friendly witness and proceeded to denounce colleagues and former-friends as communists.
George H W Bush
IQ: 130.1
A former WWII naval officer, George H. W.Bush served as the director of the CIA between 1976 and 1977 and as the 43rd vice president between 1981 and 1989.
- Bush once angered broccoli farmers up and down the country after a candid admission that he hated the vegetable.
- During the 1988 Republican National Convention, he promised that there would be no new taxes. In the 1990 budget, he raised taxes.
- On December 24, 1992, he granted executive clemency to six former government employees implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal. Former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger was one of them.
Richard Nixon
IQ: 131
They called him Tricky Dick for a very good reason. He was President Eisenhower’s vice president between 1953 and 1961, had no vice president of his own between October and November of 1973 and remains the only president to have ever resigned from office.
- Nixon’s February 1976 trip to China was kept so secret that the phrase Nixon in China has become a metaphor for any unexpected or uncharacteristic action by a politician.
- Ever swimming in a sea of constructed metaphor, the Watergate scandal that ended his political career will be forever remembered thanks to the suffix gate, which is ubiquitously added to any political scandal of note.
- He helped push through the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 and thus ended the Vietnam War.
Dwight D Eisenhower
IQ: 131.9
As supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe during WWII, Eisenhower was instrumental in defeating the Axis powers but his time spent as President was less successful.
- When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite in 1957, Eisenhower ordered the formation of a new Federal agency. NASA.
- He helped to desegregate American schools and signed legislation that protected the voting rights of African-Americans.
- Upon leaving office in 1961 he famously warned the American people of the existence of a vast military industrial complex and the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.
George Washington
IQ: 132.5
Although George Washington’s life and times predates the invention of standardized intelligence testing, a 2006 study by Dean Kieth Simonton was able to estimate scores allowing for the happy discovery that America’s first president was no slouch in the brains department.
- Washington was the very first president of the U.S. though hopefully, you already knew that.
- He did not belong to any political party whatsoever, although he largely supported the policies of the Federalist Party.
- The nice story about the cherry tree that you were told when you were little is sadly, hokum.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
IQ: 139.6
Roosevelt is America’s longest-serving president. He won four elections and served for over 12 years in the days before the 22nd Amendment prohibited such things.
- He graduated from Harvard University whilst his fifth cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, was President of the U.S.
- He was the first President to realize the potential of mass media, Between 1930 and 1944 spoke to the American people via radio on 30 separate occasions in what would become known affectionately as his fireside chats.
- Although Roosevelt led the nation to victory in WWII he did not live to see it through. He died on April 15 1945, just five months before the final ceasefire.
Abraham Lincoln
IQ: 140
Another estimate from Simonton’s study, it comes as no surprise that one of America’s greatest presidents was also one its smartest.
- Lincoln led the nation through its most bloody war. The Civil War claimed more American lives than all other U.S. wars, including WWII, put together.
- His lasting legacy is unquestionably the abolition of slavery, which was achieved by the passing of the 13th amendment in 1865.
- Despite long-held beliefs that Lincoln held little interest in his first career as a lawyer, evidence suggests that his was a diverse, and profitable practice.
John Adams
IQ: 142.5
Another Harvard graduate, the second president of the U.S.was also its first vice president and a leading figure in the movement towards independence from Great Britain
- Despite being a separatist, shortly after the Boston massacre he provided vigorous and successful – if unpopular legal defense to British soldiers on the grounds that they had right to counsel.
- He was the first president to live in the Executive Mansion, now known as the White House.
- He was also the first President to create any kind of dynastic tradition. His son, John Quincy Adams became the sixth U.S. president in 1825.
Barack Obama
IQ: 145
Much to the chagrin of Republicans, birthers and those hostile to anything and everything the 44th president of the United states has achieved, Obama ranks as one of the smartest individuals to have ever held the office.
- He is a President of many firsts. The first African-American to be elected to the office, the first president born outside of the continental United States and the only president to have sung Sweet Home Chicago with BB King. And look cool as hell doing it.
- He managed to navigate a path through a potentially devastating recession that occurred on the watch of less intellectually gifted President George W Bush.
- He was instrumental in ensuring that same-sex marriages became a constitutional right.
Theodore Roosevelt
IQ: 149
The youngest man to ever lead the nation, at just 43 years old Roosevelt’s towering intellect matched his drive, ambition and lust for life.
- Between 1901 and 1905 Roosevelt conducted the business of the presidency without the help of a vice president.
- For once, the urban legend turns out to be true. Teddy Bears really do take their name from Roosevelt who in 1902 refused to shoot a defenseless black bear that had been tied to a tree.
- He was an early champion of environmentalism creating six national parks and singing the Antiquities Act in 1906 which allowed the president to create national monuments.
James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr.
IQ: 153
The 39th president of the United States of America was the smartest man to ever hold the office. Along with Barack Obama he is one of only four presidents to ever win the Nobel peace prize.
- Carter was a humble peanut farmer from Georgia before ascending to the highest office in the land.
- The line from the Simpson’s referring to him as history’s greatest monster was intended to be ironic. He is by all accounts, a really nice guy.
- In 1982 he set up the Carter Center as a base for advancing human rights.
