Greenberg - Republic of spin: an inside history of the American presidency

A L S O B Y D A V I D G R E E N B E R G

Calvin Coolidge

Nixons Shadow

Copyright 2016 by David Greenberg

All rights reserved

First Edition

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T O

S U Z A N N E, L E O, A N D L I Z A

Liberalism will become an enclave conviction of a shrinking minority unless those who call themselves liberal reconnect their faith in tolerance, equality, opportunity for all with the more difficult faith in the dirty, loud-mouthed, false, lying business of politics itself. This disdain is cynicism, masking as high principle.

MICHAEL IGNATIEFF, Letter to a Young Liberal,

The New Republic, Nov. 24Dec. 8, 2014

One belief, more than any other, is responsible for the slaughter of individuals on the altars of the great historical idealsjustice or progress or the happiness of future generations, or the sacred mission or emancipation of a nation or race or class, or even liberty itself.... This is the belief that somewhere, in the past or in the future, in divine revelation or in the mind of an individual thinker, in the pronouncements of history or science, or in the simple heart of an uncorrupted good man, there is a final solution.

ISAIAH BERLIN, Two Concepts of Liberty

Presidents

WILLIAM McKINLEY (18971901)

THEODORE ROOSEVELT (190109)

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT (190913)

WOODROW WILSON (191321)

WARREN G. HARDING (192123)

CALVIN COOLIDGE (192329)

HERBERT HOOVER (192933)

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT (193345)

HARRY S. TRUMAN (194553)

DWIGHT EISENHOWER (195361)

JOHN F. KENNEDY (196163)

LYNDON JOHNSON (196369)

RICHARD NIXON (196974)

GERALD FORD (197477)

JIMMY CARTER (197781)

RONALD REAGAN (198189)

GEORGE BUSH (198993)

BILL CLINTON (19932001)

GEORGE W. BUSH (200109)

BARACK OBAMA (200917)

Other Politicians

WILLIAM BENTON, senator, Connecticut; founder, Benton & Bowles advertising agency

WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN, congressman, Nebraska; three-time Democratic presidential nominee; secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson

SAMUEL DICKSTEIN, congressman, New York; founder, House Un-American Activities Committee; Soviet spy

EVERETT DIRKSEN, Republican Senate minority leader

BARRY GOLDWATER, senator, Arizona; 1964 Republican presidential nominee

AL GORE, senator, Tennessee; U.S. vice president; 2000 Democratic presidential nominee

CHARLIE HALLECK, Republican House minority leader

HUEY LONG, governor and senator, Louisiana

PITCHFORK BEN TILLMAN, senator, South Carolina

ADLAI STEVENSON, governor, Illinois; two-time Democratic presidential nominee

GEORGE WALLACE, governor of Alabama

Spin Doctors

ROGER AILES, television aide to Richard Nixon; campaign manager for George Bush; founder, Fox News Channel

GEORGE AKERSON, White House press secretary under Hoover

LEE ATWATER, campaign consultant to George Bush

DAVID AXELROD, campaign consultant and White House aide to Barack Obama

BRUCE BARTON, founder, BDO (later BBD&O) advertising; author, The Man Nobody Knows; adviser to Coolidge, Hoover, Eisenhower; U.S. Republican congressman from New York City

EDWARD BERNAYS, public relations counsel; occasional political adviser

JOSEPH BUCKLIN BISHOP, journalist; information officer for Panama Canal project

PATRICK CADDELL, pollster to Jimmy Carter

HADLEY CANTRIL, public opinion researcher; wartime pollster for FDR

JAMES CARVILLE, campaign consultant to Bill Clinton

GEORGE B. CORTELYOU, White House stenographer, clerk, secretary; cabinet official

GEORGE CREEL, muckraking journalist; director of the Committee on Public Information; Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate from California

ELMER DAVIS, journalist and broadcaster; director of Office of War Information under FDR

MICHAEL DEAVER, public relations aide to Ronald Reagan

MILTON EISENHOWER, brother of Dwight Eisenhower; public information officer under FDR

GEORGE GALLUP, pollster; supporter of psychological warfare

DAVID GERGEN, communications aide to Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton; pundit

JOSEPH GOEBBELS, minister of propaganda and popular enlightenment in Nazi Germany

JAMES HAGERTY, White House press secretary under Dwight Eisenhower; executive at ABC News

LOUIS HARRIS, pollster to JFK

WILL HAYS, chairman, Republican National Committee; president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America

EMIL HURJA, pollster for Democratic National Committee and FDR

WILL IRWIN, muckraking journalist; aide to Herbert Hoover

C. D. JACKSON, publisher, Fortune magazine; special assistant to Dwight Eisenhower for psychological warfare

GERARD LAMBERT, advertising mogul; partner of Hadley Cantril in wartime public opinion research

ALBERT LASKER, president, Lord & Thomas advertising agency; adviser, Republican National Committee and Warren Harding

IVY LEDBETTER LEE, public relations pioneer; publicist on Democratic campaigns

WILLIAM LOEB, White House secretary under TR

FRANK LUNTZ, Republican pollster

ARCHIBALD MACLEISH, poet and playwright; Librarian of Congress and director of Office of Facts and Figures under FDR

CHARLES MICHELSON, longtime journalist; Democratic National Committee publicist; speechwriter to FDR

ROBERT MONTGOMERY, Hollywood actor; television coach to Dwight Eisenhower

DICK MORRIS, pollster to Bill Clinton

BILL MOYERS, political and press aide to Lyndon Johnson

JOE NAPOLITAN, Democratic political consultant

PEGGY NOONAN, speechwriter to Ronald Reagan

ARTHUR W. PAGE, public relations aide at Department of Defense during World War II

OLIVER QUAYLE, protg of Louis Harris; pollster to Lyndon Johnson

GERALD RAFSHOON, media consultant to Jimmy Carter

ROSSER REEVES, advertising executive; consultant to Dwight Eisenhower

LEONARD REINSCH, radio and television adviser to Harry Truman and JFK

SAMUEL ROSENMAN, speechwriter for FDR; New York state judge

KARL ROVE, campaign consultant and White House aide to George W. Bush

WILLIAM SAFIRE, public relations aide; speechwriter for Richard Nixon

PIERRE SALINGER, magazine journalist; press secretary to JFK

TONY SCHWARTZ, radio programmer; advertising consultant; Democratic political consultant

SCOTT SFORZA, television aide to George W. Bush

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, campaign consultant and White House aide to Bill Clinton

ARTHUR SYLVESTER, Defense Department public relations aide under JFK and Johnson

ROBERT TEETER, Republican pollster

JOSEPH TUMULTY, White House secretary under Woodrow Wilson

GEORGE SYLVESTER VIERECK, propagandist for Germany in World Wars I and II

JUDSON WELLIVER, speechwriter for Harding and Coolidge; journalist