The Rhetorical Presidency Propaganda And The Cold War 1945 1955

Both Truman and Eisenhower combined bully pulpit activity with presidentially directed messages voiced by surrogates whose words were as orchestrated by the administration as those delivered by the presidents themselves. A Review of the private strategizing sessions concerning propaganda activity and the actual propaganda disseminated by the Truman and Eisenhower administrations reveals how they both militarized propaganda operations, allowing the president of the United States to serve as the commander-in-chief of propaganda activity. As the presidents minimized congressional control over propaganda operations, they institutionalized propaganda as a presidential tool, expanded the means by which they and their successors could perform the rhetorical presidency, and increased presidential power over the country's Cold War message, naturalizing the Cold War ideology that resonates yet today. Of particular interest to scholars and students of political communication, the modern presidency, and Cold War history.

Rhetoric and history intersected dramatically during the Cold War, which was, above all else, a war of words. This volume, which combines the work of historians and communication scholars, examines the public discourse in Cold War America from a number of perspectives including how rhetoric shaped history and policies and how rhetorical images invited interpretations of history. The book opens with Norman Graebner's wideranging analysis of the rhetorical background of the Cold War. Frank Costigliola then parses Stalin's speech of February, 1946, an address that many in the West took as a declaration of war by the USSR. The development of NSC68 in 1950, often referred to as America's "blueprint" for fighting the Cold War, is the subject of Robert P. Newman's review. Shawn J. ParryGiles and J. Michael Hogan then focus on American propaganda responses to the perceived Soviet threat. H. W. Brands, Randall B. Woods, and Rachel L. Holloway examine the effects of liberal ideology and rhetoric on domestic and foreign policy decisions. Robert J. McMahon and Robert L. Ivie raise the issue of what it has meant to be the "leader of the Free World" and what the task of postCold War rhetoric will be in this regard. Scholars concerned with the role of words in public life and in the study of history will find challenging material in this interdisciplinary volume. Historians, speech communication scholars, and political scientists with an interest in the Cold War will similarly find grist for further milling.

This volume examines crucial moments in the rhetoric of the Cold War, beginning with an exploration of American neutrality and the debate over entering World War II. Other topics include the long-distance debate carried on over international radio between Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt; understanding and interpreting World War II propaganda; domestic radio following the war and the use of Abraham Lincoln narratives as vehicles for American propaganda; the influence of foreign policy agents Dean Acheson, Paul Nitze, and George Kennan; and the rhetoric of former presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Ultimately, this volume offers a broad-based look at the rhetoric framing the Cold War and in doing so offers insight into the political climate of today.

During the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, Washington policymakers aspired to destabilize the Soviet and East European Communist Party regimes by implementing programs of psychological warfare and gradual cultural infiltration. In focusing on American propaganda and cultural infiltration of the Soviet empire in these years, Parting the Curtain emerges as a groundbreaking study of certain aspects of US Cold War diplomacy never before examined.

Modern presidents regularly appeal over the heads of Congress to the people at large to generate support for public policies. The Rhetorical Presidency makes the case that this development, born at the outset of the twentieth century, is the product of conscious political choices that fundamentally transformed the presidency and the meaning of American governance. Now with a new foreword by Russell Muirhead and a new afterword by the author, this landmark work probes political pathologies and analyzes the dilemmas of presidential statecraft. Extending a tradition of American political writing that begins with The Federalist and continues with Woodrow Wilson’s Congressional Government, The Rhetorical Presidency remains a pivotal work in its field.

Political Warfare against the Kremlin provides a comparative study and holistic review of American and British propaganda policy toward the Soviet Union during the first fifteen years of the Cold War, ranging from the role senior policymakers played in setting propaganda policy to the West's radio broadcasts to the Soviet Union.

Osgood focuses on major campaigns such as Atoms for Peace, People-to-People, and cultural exchange programs. Drawing on recently declassified documents that record U.S. psychological operations in some three dozen countries, he tells how U.S. propaganda agencies presented everyday life in America to the world: its citizens living full, happy lives in a classless society where economic bounty was shared by all. Osgood further investigates the ways in which superpower disarmament negotiations were used as propaganda maneuvers in the battle for international public opinion. He also reexamines the early years of the space race, focusing especially on the challenge to American propagandists posed by the Soviet launch of Sputnik.

It is the early Cold War. The Soviet Union appears to be in irresistible ascendance, and moves to exploit the Olympic Games as a vehicle for promoting international communism. In response, the United States conceives a subtle, far-reaching psychological warfare campaign to blunt the Soviet advance. Drawing on newly declassified materials and archives, Toby C. Rider chronicles how the US government used the Olympics to promote democracy and its own policy aims during the tense early phase of the Cold War. Rider shows how the government, though constrained by traditions against interference in the Games, eluded detection by cooperating with private groups, including secretly funded émigré organizations bent on liberating their home countries from Soviet control. At the same time, the United States appropriated Olympic host cities to hype the American economic and political system while, behind the scenes, the government attempted clandestine manipulation of the International Olympic Committee. Rider also details the campaigns that sent propaganda materials around the globe as the United States mobilized culture in general, and sports in particular, to fight the communist threat.