The Modern Presidency and Crisis Rhetoric

by Amos Kiewe (Editor)

Overview

This volume examines how presidents from Truman to Bush rhetorically approached and managed political, military, judicial, legislative, and economic crises during their presidencies. Editor Amos Kiewe assembles new essays by communications scholars who look at rhetoric initiated during national crises, and account for various rhetorical developments affected by crises, changes in presidential rhetoric, and rhetorical and situational crisis constraints. Their studies suggest similarities in rhetoric in different types of crises, and yield resources for postulating patterns of crisis rhetoric.

Each chapter's author presents a crisis rhetoric case study, analyzing initial strategies and tactics, shifts in rhetorical tactics, adjustments of discourse to particular phases in the crises, and unique rhetorical approaches designed to accommodate unexpected turbans of events. The contributors discuss how presidents use rhetorical inventions, flip-flops, face-saving posturing, and even silence to diffuse crises. Specific topics include Eisenhower's response to the constitutional crisis in Little Rock, Kennedy and the Berlin Wall crisis, Johnson and the Kennedy assassination, Nixon and Watergate, and Bush and the Persian Gulf Crisis. Recommended for political scientists and communication theorists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275941765
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	11/30/1993
Series:	Praeger Series in Political Communication
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.69(d)
Lexile:	1530L (what's this?)

About the Author

AMOS KIEWE is an Assistant Professor of Speech Communication at Syracuse University. He is the co-author, with Davis W. Houck, of two books, Shining City On a Hill: Ronald Reagan's Economic Rhetoric (Praeger, 1991), and Actor, Ideologue, Politican: The Public Speeches of Ronald Reagan (Greenwood Press, 1993).

Table of Contents

Series Foreword by Robert E. Denton, Jr.
Preface
Introduction by Amos Kiewe
Declaring a National Emergency: Truman's Rhetorical Crisis and the Great Debate of 1951 by Robert L. Ivie
Eisenhower, Little Rock, and the Rhetoric of Crisis by Martin J. Medhurst
Crisis as Pretext: John F. Kennedy and the Rhetorical Construction of the Berlin Crisis by Enrico Pucci, Jr.
Lyndon B. Johnson's Crisis Rhetoric after the Assassination of John F. Kennedy: Securing Legitimacy and Leadership by Kurt Ritter
Richard Nixon and the Personalization of Crisis by Carole Blair and Davis W. Houck
The Coalitional Crisis of the Ford Presidency: The Pardons Reconsidered by Craig Allen Smith and Kathy B. Smith
Narrative Character in Presidential Crisis Rhetoric: Jimmy Carter and the Iranian Hostage Crisis by Charles J.G. Griffin
Creating His Own Constraint: Ronald Reagan and the Iran-Contra Crisis by Greg Dickinson
From a Rhetorical Trap to Capitulation and Obviation: The Crisis Rhetoric of George Bush's "Read My Lips: No New Taxes" by Amos Kiewe
The Battle for the Past: George Bush and the Gulf Crisis by Mark A. Pollock
Bibliography
Index