Solution: President between Calvin and Franklin - NYT Crossword

This clue illustrates an important principle of crossword solving: When a clue refers to a given name instead of a surname, the entry is often also going to be a given name. For the clue “President between Calvin and Franklin” (as in Calvin Coolidge and Franklin D. Roosevelt), the entry is HERBERT instead of Hoover. The exception to this rule is if the clue provides you only with the first name of a person for whom you need to supply the surname, or vice versa (e.g., at 45A, “Haggard of country music” only refers to one person, so you need to identify Mr. Haggard’s first name, MERLE).