THE LONG TWILIGHT STRUGGLE: PRESIDENTIAL RHETORIC AND NATIONAL SECURITY IN THE COLD WAR, 1945-1974
Open Access
- Author:
- Drury, Sara Ann Mehltretter
- Graduate Program:
- Communication Arts and Sciences
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 15, 2011
- Committee Members:
- James Hogan, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
James Hogan, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Thomas Walter Benson, Committee Member
Jeremy Engels, Committee Member
John Philip Jenkins, Committee Member - Keywords:
- presidential rhetoric
national security
Cold War
rhetorical criticism
foreign policy - Abstract:
- This study explores the discourse of U.S. presidents as they defined and redefined the concept of “national security” during the Cold War. As commander-in-chief and the most visible spokesman for the United States in world affairs, the president has enormous power to shape understandings of national security strategy and foreign policy. The project consists of a series of four case studies in presidential speech making on national security: Harry S. Truman’s “Truman Doctrine” speech; Dwight Eisenhower’s “Age of Peril” radio address; John F. Kennedy’s “Inaugural Address”; and the speeches of Richard Nixon during his February 1972 trip to the People’s Republic of China. I argue that each of these episodes marked a significant moment in the rhetoric of national security, as each president promoted a new understanding of the nature of the threats to U.S. national security interests and the motives and ambitions of the nation’s enemies. Each president’s national security rhetoric in turn had significant implications for the nation’s diplomacy, defense policy, economic policy, and role in world affairs. The study demonstrates how national security has been a rhetorically malleable construct, and it contributes to ongoing scholarly conversations about the rhetoric of foreign policy, the history of the Cold War, the intersections of foreign policy and political campaign rhetoric, and the implications of national security rhetoric for democratic theory and practice.