|
Article Excerpt
Throughout his presidency, George W. Bush actively drew connections between the war on terror and World War II and/or the Cold War (see Chernus 2006; Ivie 2005; Noon 2004; Smith 2007). At the same time, Bush also drew parallels between his presidency and that of his predecessors. For example, in a speech before the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Bush made comparisons between his administration and that of Harry Truman. He stated,
As we advance the cause of freedom in Iraq, our Nation can proceed with confidence that we have done this kind of work before. After World War II, President Harry Truman believed that the way to help bring peace and prosperity to Asia was to plant the seeds of freedom and democracy in Japan. Like today, there were many skeptics and pessimists who said that the Japanese were not ready for democracy. Fortunately, Harry Truman stuck to his guns. He believed, as I do, in freedom's power to transform an adversary into an ally. And because he stayed true to his convictions, today Japan is one of the world's freest and most prosperous nations, and one of America's closest allies in keeping the peace. The spread of freedom to Iraq and the Middle East requires the same confidence and persistence, and it will lead to the same results. (Bush 2005)
Here, Bush analogized the circumstances in postwar Japan to that of Iraq in the midst of the war on terror. For President Bush, the parallels between Truman's presidency and his own were undeniable and served as tacit evidence to justify his activities in Iraq. You could read Bush's message to the nation as this: Harry Truman was right about Japan, and my ability to lead the United States in Iraq is the same as his. Thus, my efforts will be conducted with the "same confidence and persistence" and will "lead to the same results."
Certainly, President Bush's use of the past is not an isolated example. Historical events and persons are often called upon in all aspects of society to celebrate some political purpose or appropriated in some way to meet the needs of the present day. For example, in American popular culture, the 1990s saw a resurgence of World War II nostalgia. Texts such as Saving Private Ryan and Tom Brokaw's best-selling book The Greatest Generation celebrated the contributions of the World War II generation, but more importantly, they offered up a "civics lesson" to the American people on the virtues of sacrifice and its own exceptionalist nature (Biesecker 2002). In the realm of politics, our discourse, particularly presidential rhetoric, is rife with references to past events and the great presidents of the past, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. When presidents invoke their predecessors, they are calling upon what Philip Abbott (1990) termed the "exemplar presidents." Donald Rice (1992) referred to this kind of invocation as the rhetoric of the "authorizing figure." Whatever terminology is used, appropriating the memory of historical heroes for present-day purposes is a form of collective memory that performs important political and symbolic work in American politics, in particular presidential foreign policy rhetoric, and is the subject of this inquiry.
Specifically, I focus on the presidential foreign policy rhetoric of three contemporary presidents--Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush--and consider how they invoked the memory of Harry Truman. I chose these three presidents because enough time had passed between their presidencies and Truman's to allow for reflection on a number of events that occurred during the Cold War, which may have influenced their foreign policy worldviews. Moreover, these three presidents are the only contemporary ones who served two full terms that were not interrupted by death (JFK) or scandal (Nixon). That is not to say that one-term presidents such as Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush did not call upon the Truman legacy. Yet, for the sake of consistency, I focused on contemporary presidents who served their constitutional limit and were able to fully develop their foreign policy records.
This essay examines how Truman's memory has been appropriated in foreign policy. The question that arises is, why focus on Truman? For one, he is arguably one of the most, if not the most important president in modern American foreign policy. Generally, Truman's foreign policy accomplishments were vast. He implemented an international order of institutions by establishing the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund; successfully launched the Berlin airlift; enacted the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan; reorganized the Defense Department; established the United States' first permanent alliance structure (NATO); and initiated the policy of containment against the Soviet Union. He accomplished so much in the foreign policy arena that, according to a recent academic survey, he was listed, after Franklin D. Roosevelt, as the second most important foreign policy president in the last hundred years (Maliniak et al. 2007). Democrats love Harry Truman because he was an exemplar of a strong Democratic foreign policy president, a subject where Republicans generally have had an upper hand over the past few election cycles. Republicans revere Truman for his ability to stand up against America's enemies, such as the Japanese and the Soviets. As Peter Beinart (2006) put it, "no matter how polarized Washington becomes, there is still one Democrat Republicans love: Harry Truman ... it is a virtual article of faith on the contemporary right that today's conservatives--not today's liberals--are the true heirs of the anti-totalitarian tradition with which we associate Truman's name." Truman's foreign policy legacy makes him a president revered by all and an authorizing figure within the realm of international relations.
However, what constitutes Truman's greatest legacy and who are his rightful heirs is still a matter of debate. For example, in 2006, the Hudson Institute held a panel discussion on "The Truman Legacy: Who Is the Rightful Heir?" The institute brought together three prominent scholars to debate Truman's legacy and to discuss which party was better suited to carry out that heritage. By analyzing the ways in which these three contemporary presidents used Truman, this research offers one of the first opportunities for presidential scholars to mine the contours of his foreign policy legacy for both parties. This essay contributes to the literature on this important foreign policy president.
Moreover, understanding how presidents use historical figures is an important aspect of American political culture and should be studied further. Abbott (1990) argued that presidents using prominent historical figures links specific cultural beliefs to current action, provides them with ideal behaviors that should be imitated, and functions as a way to read our current political environment. Lara Brown further observed that "when presidents reference other presidents it is important, even when they say it is not. These references are rhetorical ploys that invite comparisons, offer justifications, and provide gravitas to the president in the subject matter that he is addressing ... presidents invoke their predecessors to control symbolically the political definitions of the presidency" (2007, 125). Even though it is acknowledged that these historical heroes are an important part of our collective memory and actively used in presidential discourse, we have little theoretical research on the subject (for exceptions, see Abbott 1990; Bostdorff and Goldzwig 2005; Brown 2007). This article, then, contributes to the literature on collective memory and the presidency by beginning to map what these "rhetorical ploys" entail.
In my analysis, I explore this subject by examining the public discourse of Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and Bush. All of the speeches analyzed for this essay were located in The Public Papers of the President. In order to determine how these presidents employed Truman's name in their discourse, I began by conducting a term search using "Truman" with each president. I then examined each speech to determine how Reagan, Clinton, and Bush referenced the thirty-third president. I eliminated speeches that merely mentioned Truman's name in passing for example, when presidents nominated trustees to the Harry Truman Scholarship Foundation or when Truman's name was included in a succession of leaders. Those references offered no content that related to the focus of this study. Similarly, I eliminated speeches in which foreign policy was not the subject of the reference. I focused on speeches in which Reagan, Clinton, and Bush invoked Truman's name or used some of his own words as part of an extended logic in discussing American foreign affairs. From those speeches, I was able to discern a pattern in how these presidents cited Truman. The textual evidence presented in this essay is representative of a larger pattern that was revealed, offering the clearest and most poignant examples of that discourse. Specifically, I argue that Truman served a sanctioning function for Presidents Reagan, Clinton, and Bush. By "sanctioning," I mean that these presidents used the memory of Truman to validate and ratify their foreign policy agendas. By associating themselves with the thirty-third president, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush invited audiences to see their specific principles and policies as natural extensions of the Truman legacy. However, these presidents appropriated different aspects of that legacy to support their policy decisions.
In order to demonstrate this argument, this essay proceeds in three parts. I begin by offering...
|
