Product Description

Parry-Giles challenges the scholarly assumption that the rhetorical presidency refers to presidential messages delivered from the bully pulpit only. By examining early Cold War discourse, she demonstrates how Presidents Truman and Eisenhower transformed the U.S. propaganda program into an executive tool reliant on presidential surrogates in the promulgation of a covert and monolithic Cold War ideology.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2602243 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 264 pages

Review
“Mobilization of public opinion has been a central concern for 20th-century US presidents. Inspired especially by Jeffrey Tulis's The Rhetorical Presidency (CH, Apr'88), recent studies of the presidency have looked primarily at such "great communicators" as the Roosevelts, Kennedy, and Reagan. Parry-Giles (Univ. of Maryland) directs attention to the dark underside of the bully pulpit: the use of covert, camouflaged, and manipulative rhetorical practices intended to buttress the power of the office while shielding it from congressional scrutiny and public criticism. In so doing, the author makes a persuasive case for regarding Truman and Eisenhower as important institutional innovators. Making effective use of archival material (some of it only recently declassified), Parry-Giles documents the mid-20th-century shift of emphasis in national propaganda policy from news dissemination to psychological warfare, from openly debated to deeply clandestine initiatives, from legislative involvement to executive control. She discusses how members of Truman's Psychological Strategy Board (created in 1951) were confident that that board's "very existence" was unknown to most members of Congress, and how secrecy--rhetorical surrogates, "plausible deniability"--became hallmarks of the information initiatives implemented by better-known entities such as the CIA. Rekindled enthusiasm for such measures since 9/11 makes this fine book timely as well as relevant. All levels.”–Choice

“Shawn J. Parry-Giles has written a well-researched, carefully conceived book of interest to students of the U.S. propaganda apparatus and students of presidential rhetoric and communications strategies....Parry-Giles provides a useful guide to specific propaganda policy shifts within two administrations, and keeps presidential consolidation of control over U.S. information policies at its center.”–Journal of American History

“Shawn J. Parry-Giles has written and important work that every serious student of rhetoric, the presidency, and the Cold War should read...this book provides much food for thought even if one cannot accept all of the conclusions it contains...readership of this joural with research and teaching interests in relevant areas should have their home libraries purchase a copy of this study, read it, and contemplate the arguments contained on its pages.”–Rhetoric & Public Affairs

About the Author
SHAWN J. PARRY-GILES is Assistant Professor of Communication, Affiliate Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, and the Director of the Center for Political Communication Civic Leadership in the Department of Communication, University of Maryland.