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The former senator and presidential candidate offers a provocative new assessment of the first national security presidentJames Monroe is remembered today primarily for two things for being the last of the Virginia Dynastyfollowing George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madisonand for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, his statement of principles in 1823 that the western hemisphere was to be considered closed to European intervention. But Gary Hart sees Monroe as a president ahead of his time, whose priorities and accomplishments in establishing Americas national security have a great deal in common with chief executives of our own time.Unlike his predecessors Jefferson and Madison, Monroe was at his core a military man. He joined the Continental Army at the age of seventeen and served with distinction in many pivotal battles.