21
Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC Foreign Policy and Presidential Campaigns Author(s): Stephen Hess Source: Foreign Policy, No. 8 (Autumn, 1972), pp. 3-22 Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1147807 . Accessed: 14/06/2014 22:25 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Foreign Policy. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Foreign Policy and Presidential Campaigns

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC

Foreign Policy and Presidential CampaignsAuthor(s): Stephen HessSource: Foreign Policy, No. 8 (Autumn, 1972), pp. 3-22Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLCStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1147807 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 22:25

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to Foreign Policy.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

FOREIGN POLICY AND PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS

by Stephen Hess

"You can say all you want about foreign affairs, but what is really important is the price of hogs in Chicago and St. Louis," said the Governor of Illinois, William G. Stratton.

The setting for the Governor's remark was a post-midnight meeting in the suite of Richard Nixon at the Sheraton-Blackstone Hotel. Only hours before, the delegates to the 1960 Republican National Convention in Chicago had unanimously chosen Nixon as their Presidential nominee and the candidate had now summoned 36 party elders to advise him on choosing a running mate.

Ultimately Nixon rejected Stratton's advice and picked Henry Cabot Lodge, whose face was known to millions of American television viewers as their country's chief spokesman at the United Nations for nearly eight years. In explaining his decision, Nixon commented, "If you ever let them [the Democrats] cam- paign only on domestic issues, they'll beat us--our only hope is to keep it on foreign policy."I

Nixon has not been the only candidate to be confronted with the conventional wisdom about what is the relative effectiveness of foreign and domestic issues in Presidential campaigns. Barry Goldwater in 1964 dis- patched an aide to Chicago to discuss a forth- coming speech with Charles Barr, "a signif- icant force in Illinois politics." Barr, according to speechwriter Karl Hess, was concerned "that Goldwater was not talking about the pocketbook issues which, in the minds of most political pros, are the only ones that really swing votes." Nevertheless, Hess pre-

'Carleton Kent and Joseph Albright, Chicago Sun, Times, July 29, 1960.

3.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

dicted that the speech "would contain some comments on foreign policy." Barr's reply, "angry and loud," was "You Goddamn Boy Scouts are going to ruin everything."2

Ironically for Richard Nixon, 1960 was the only election since 1952 in which foreign policy did not play the dominant role. For the evidence strongly suggests that-contrary to the belief of many observers-foreign policy has been dominant in four of the last five Presidential campaigns, and will be a major issue in 1972.

This election, of course, pits a man who rose to national prominence through his steadfast opposition to the Vietnam war against a man whose overriding interests and achievements have been in foreign policy, and who will undoubtedly campaign on the "generation of peace" theme; Nixon stressing his record and highlighting his Moscow and Peking trips while trying to defuse Vietnam, and McGovern stressing his opponent's un- fulfilled pledge to bring the war to an honor- able conclusion. Reinforcing McGovern is the fact that, unlike 1968, opposition to the war is now a unifying issue among Democrats and thus becomes a rallying point for a party seeking to heal the self-inflicted wounds of the pre-convention period. Reinforcing Nixon's position is the control the President can exercise over events in the international arena, including the possibility that he might manage to undercut the Democrats totally on the Vietnam issue.

While foreign policy has been the dominant issue in four of the last five elections and is likely to dominate again this year, there are several important additional observations that must be made: 1. We have not witnessed serious, responsible

debate on foreign policy during the Presi- dential campaigns;

2. The American voter is not particularly knowledgeable about foreign policy issues;

3. The electorate's interest in foreign policy

'Karl Hess, In A Cause That Will Triumph (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967), pp. 21-23.

4.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Hess

does not go much beyond a basic yearning for peace;

4. Foreign policy issues have not necessarily been decisive, even though they were dominant. A look at the last five Presidential cam-

paigns is instructive: 1952: The Republicans, with Dwight Eisen-

hower as their candidate, ran a sort of three "C's" campaign, "Korea, Communism, and Corruption," with Communism proving to be the least potent. Poll data showed the Korean war steadily rising in percent of voter concern from one-fourth (January) to one- third (September) to over one-half (late October). On October 24 in Detroit, Eisen- hower delivered his "I shall go to Korea" speech-the most politically skillful foreign policy pronouncement in recent history. "The origin of the speech was simple and inexorable in political logic," wrote Emmet Hughes, its draftsman. "It rose from the need to say something affirmative on the sharpest issue of the day-without engaging in frivolous assur- ances and without binding a future administra- tion to policies or actions fashioned in mid-campaign by any distorting temptations of domestic politics."3

1956: In the rematch between Eisen- hower and Adlai Stevenson, the Republicans changed their alliteration to "Peace, Prosper- ity, and Progress." If Eisenhower's most im- portant statement of 1952 had been "I shall go to Korea," four years later it was "Ladies and gentlemen, I feel fine." Besides the ques- tion of the President's health, the issues of sharpest disagreement were the draft and nuclear testing (to be discussed later). The campaign was complicated by the Hungarian uprising and the Israeli-French-English inva- sion of Egypt in late October, at which time Vice President Nixon stated the case for his ticket: "This is not the moment to replace the greatest Commander in Chief America has ever had .. ."

3Emmet John Hughes, The Ordeal of Power (New York: Atheneum, 1956), p. 33 (italics in original).

5.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1960: Although questions of foreign rela- tions were much discussed-Cuba, Quemoy- Matsu, missile gap, U.S. prestige abroad- basically the campaign revolved around religion and mood. "I have premised my campaign for the Presidency," said John F. Kennedy, "on the simple assumption that the American people are uneasy at the present drift in our national course . .. and that they have the will and the strength to start the United States moving again." Nixon, on the other hand, "pointed with pride to an eight- year record of unparalleled national growth. ... But at the same time ... warned against smugness or complacency." In sum, thought Theodore H. White, "specifics and issues had all but ceased to matter; only 'style' was important.''4

1964: The tone of the campaign was set by a television commercial, aired only once, in which a little girl plucks daisy petals while a doomsday voice begins a countdown, fol- lowed by a mushroom cloud and the voice- over of President Lyndon B. Johnson remind- ing listeners that "these are the stakes. .. ." The Republican candidate's world-view had been expressed in The Conscience of a Conser- vative (1960): "The Communists' aim is to conquer the world.. . unless you contem- plate treason-your objective, like his, will be victory. Not 'peace,' but victory." From years of musing aloud about using nuclear weapons to defoliate forests in Southeast Asia and delegating authority to the NATO commander to use tactical nuclear weapons, Goldwater found himself entwined in a tangle of state- ments that first Rockefeller, then Scranton, and finally Johnson used against him with brutal effectiveness. As election day ap- proached, Johnson rephrased the question that was on voters' minds: "Who do you want to be sittin' beside that hot line when the telephone goes ting-a-ling and the voice on the other end says 'Moscow calling'?"

1968: Vietnam dominated the election year.

'Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1960 (New York: Pocket Books, 1962), p. 390.

6.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Hess

The Tet offensive increased the incentive for Johnson to withdraw as a candidate. On the day of his withdrawal, March 31, Nixon was to go on radio with his Vietnam plan. (It called for pressure on Moscow: "Without Soviet military assistance, the North Viet- namese war machine would grind to a halt.... If the Soviets were disposed to see the war ended and a compromise settlement nego- tiated, they have the means to move Ho Chi Minh to the conference table.") The speech was never delivered. Instead Nixon backed off from specifics, declaring that once a Presidential candidate "makes a statement in- dicating what he would settle for he pulls the rug out from under the negotiators."5 His tele- vision spots stressed hopeful generalizations:

VIDEO:

Proud faces of Viet- namese peasants ending in cu [close-up] of the word "Love" scrawled on the helmet of Amer- ican G.I. and pull back to reveal his face.

AUDIO:

Nixon: I pledge to you, we will have an honor- able end to the war in Vietnam.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

After a bitter split over the Vietnam plat- form plank at their convention, the Demo- crats chose Hubert Humphrey. Some of his advisors recommended an open break with the Johnson Administration policy on Viet- nam. But in his Salt Lake City speech of September 30, the Vice President would only go so far as to announce his willingness "to stop the bombing of North Vietnam as an acceptable risk for peace. . . ." The President declared a bombing halt on October 31; how- ever, the immediate refusal of the South Vietnamese to join talks left the American people confused and succeeded in neutralizing any potential advantage to the Democrats. Despite the rhetorical drumbeat on "law-and- order," the polls showed Vietnam as the

5See Richard J. Whalen, Catch the Falling Flag (Bos- ton: Houghton Mifflin, 1972), pp. 283-294; Earl Mazo and Stephen Hess, Nixon: A Political Portrait (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), p. 310.

7.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

number one concern of the electorate and Nixon reminded his workers in the closing minutes of the campaign, "As we come down to the wire, I think the major issue in your final telephone calls that you should empha- size is the issue of peace."

Clearly, in these elections, foreign policy as an issue boiled down to who was most apt to get or keep us out of war; highly technical questions, such as international finance, or even explosive situations which were unlikely to involve American troops, were not the stuff on which electoral mandates were constructed.

The Law of the Worst

It is Daniel P. Moynihan's widely shared opinion that "elections are rarely our finest hour." As an iron rule, issues in a political campaign are oversimplified, overdramatized, and overcatastrophized. Reasonable discus- sion, as Theodore White has written, may be "the dream of unblooded political scientists," but in practice there should be no expectation that Presidential campaigns are or will be appropriate vehicles for objective, thorough, balanced review of public policy. While this applies to both domestic and international issues, the latter are made even more inscru- table by their complexities, secrecy restric- tions, and the limited knowledge of most voters. Thus it can be stated as a general law of campaigning: All issues are badly handled; foreign policy issues are handled worst. Yet on both foreign and domestic issues, elections serve as a blunt but efficient instrument, registering public concerns, with the recourse for unacceptable policies being to "throw the rascals out" or "keep the rascals out."

The issue-ignorance of the electorate prob- ably is the most thoroughly documented tenet of voting research. University of Michigan scholars in 1964 found that 28 percent of those interviewed did not know there was a Communist regime in China. A majority (three out of five) of those who voted for Eugene McCarthy in the 1968 New Hamp-

8.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Hess

shire primary probably did not know that the Minnesota Senator was a "dove" since they viewed the Johnson Administration as not hardline enough in Vietnam. Still, as V. O. Key has pointed out, "voters are not fools." For example, in 1960 Nixon received 58 per- cent of the Negro vote in Atlanta; in 1964 Goldwater received less than 1 percent of that vote. Many of these voters may not have known the substance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many may not have known that Goldwater voted against it. But their massive vote-shift suggests that they had a firm notion of which candidate would be most sympa- thetic to their interests and thus had used their ballots "rationally."

Most Americans cast their votes on the basis of party affiliation. If no other forces were at work the Democrats would always win, 54-46. Since Presidential elections are rarely decided by this margin, there are obviously other "short-term" influences, whether Ike's smile, Kennedy's Catholicism, Korea or Vietnam. A rough gauge might weigh "the party factor" at 60 percent and give 40 percent to be divided between issues and candidates. Another rough estimate would show that a third of the voters make up their minds before the conventions, a third during the conventions, and a third during the campaign. Many U.S. Presidential elections (1960 and 1968, but not 1956 and 1964) are close enough for the time between Labor Day and Election Day to make a dif- ference in the outcome. During this period the only voting determinants that the candi- dates can manipulate are "the issues"-what they choose to stand for, what they choose to ignore, and the relative emphasis given one over another. And it is here that the candi- dates have accented foreign policy during the past two decades. These issues have not neces- sarily been decisive in terms of outcomes, they have merely been dominant, as selected by the candidates from a range of potential options. With pristine hindsight, it is obvious that whether the candidates stressed nuclear weap-

9.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

onry (which they did) or the price of hogs (which they did not), Eisenhower would have been given a second term and Goldwater would have been decisively defeated; while in 1952 and 1968 the pollsters tell us that the issues of Korea and Vietnam respectively were compelling components of the voters' "time for a change" decisions, rather than isolatable causes for the Republican victories.

Given, however, that the electorate has less interest in and less knowledge of foreign relations as compared with domestic affairs, it is clear that on those international issues that the voters do care about, they care very deeply indeed. (As the classic American gov- ernment textbook by Burns and Peltason puts it: "Foreign policy issues ... in contrast with domestic issues have less extensity and more intensity.") Foreign policy becomes a dom- inant campaign issue only when it has reached the raw nerve of the electorate and is thus "domesticated."

Thus, American actions on issues of great importance, such as Bangladesh or the world monetary situation, may affect almost no votes at all. They have not reached that raw nerve. On the other hand, U.S. policy to some countries has become so domesticated that both parties must play special themes on them at all times. The "three-I circuit"-Italy, Ireland, Israel-remains a potent force in American politics, as George McGovern learned during the California primary, when, to counter charges that he was not sufficiently pro-Israel, he had to suddenly start proclaim- ing that he "would go to Jerusalem," and, if elected, move the American Embassy there.

At Water's Edge?

Candidates' appeals in the international realm are basic, even primitive: "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars" (Franklin D. Roose- velt, 1940). "If there must be a war there [Korea], let it be Asians against Asians ..." (Dwight Eisenhower, 1952). "We are not

10.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Hess

about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing to protect them- selves" (Lyndon Johnson, 1964). Yet given two factors which have worked powerfully to keep foreign policy discussion out of election year debate, the quantity, if not the quality, of these debates has been noteworthy.

First, there has been the underlying Amer- ican belief that "politics stops at the water's edge," the pervasive notion that partisanship is not only out of place in foreign affairs, but somehow almost un-American. Massive dis- illusionment with Vietnam involvement has eroded this feeling, but candidates still find it necessary to pay lip service to this lingering heritage. As the veteran reporter Merriman Smith commented, "Consider the number of times in 1968 that one candidate or another was heard to say that he did not intend to trifle with national interests by making the war in Vietnam a political issue. Then, for the next 15 minutes he usually talked about Vietnam and the unrealistic, immoral, or mis- guided position of the other candidates."'

Second, issues tend to surface in American politics because of strong prompting from pressure groups, which traditionally are or- ganized along occupational lines. Labor unions, the American Medical Association, and farm groups, for instance, may have positions on international relations, but they are not generally central to their being. Irish- Americans and German-Americans lobbied to prevent U.S. intervention in both World Wars. Predictable pressure has come from Jewish groups and Eastern European nation- alities groups, and is increasingly coming from black Americans. (Some 12,000 blacks marched to the Washington Monument-re- named "Lumumba Square" for the day-in May 1972, where Congressman Charles Diggs told them that it is "time for people in America and the Caribbean to see that our

6 Timothy G. Smith (ed.), Merriman Smith's Book of Presidents: A White House Memoir (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1972), p. 137.

11.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

African past is connected to the African future.... We are sounding a warning that no longer will the movement for justice stop at the water's edge.") Yet on the scale of forces that weigh most heavily in the making of Presidential election issues, these are mod- est, bordering on inconsequential.

Is It an Ego Trip?

Many have noted the abrupt switch from Statehouse to Capitol Hill in producing our Presidential contenders, those who get the nominations as well as those who vie for them. Many reasons are given: the flow of power to Washington, with vastly expanded budgets, proliferation of grant-in-aid pro- grams, and less obvious but equally centrip- etal nationalizing trends; the problems of governors in performing their duties without incurring serious political bruises, while the less-exposed legislators do not have to share equally in governmental failures; the ability of senators to dominate the news, in part because Washington is where political-govern- mental news is written. All true, yet even more overriding, in my opinion, is the simple predominance of international relations in our lives, the great stakes of war and peace, the heightened role in the world that the United States has assumed for itself since World War II, all of which is outside the purview and expertise of the men in the states.

Strangely, perhaps, another important rea- son for the prominence of foreign policy in Presidential politics is that it has most engaged those who by some mysterious proc- ess become labeled in the press as "potential Presidential nominees." More of this breed have served on the Foreign Relations Com- mittee, for example, than on any other single Senate committee: Alben Barkley, Hubert Humphrey, John Kennedy, William Know- land, Eugene McCarthy, Edmund Muskie, and Stuart Symington. Johnson and Gold- water were members of the Armed Services Committee; Eisenhower, of course, came from the military, but with assignments that heavily

12.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Hess

involved international diplomacy; Nixon's foreign relations experience went back to membership on the Herter Committee in the House of Representatives; McGovern had been Food for Peace Director; and even most of the governors whose names have been in that magic circle of potential Presidents have had foreign policy experience-Stevenson, Harriman, Rockefeller, and Scranton. Only Kefauver, Wallace, and Romney have been without substantial foreign relations experi- ence, and for Romney, who in 1967 admitted to having been "brainwashed" on Vietnam, this contributed mightily to his undoing.

Foreign policy has often become an issue in Presidential campaigns because the candidates have wished it to be, often because it was the area in which they were most interested. Take the case of Adlai Stevenson in 1956.

Well before the convention Stevenson's advisors reached the conclusion, based on detailed study of voter attitudes and public opinion polls, that the Democratic campaign should be waged on domestic policy. "Con- centrating on domestic issues," wrote two of the candidate's braintrust, Arthur Schlesin- ger, Jr., and Seymour Harris, "would renew the image of the Democratic party as the people's party, leading the nation out of depression and poverty, while too much talk about foreign policy might simply remind people that the nation had been at war several times when Democratic administra- tions were in power."'

The Stevenson offensive was to be called "The New America," a phrase he used in accepting the nomination, and would empha- size such issues as education, medical care, civil rights, civil liberties, and the problems of children and the aged.

As the campaign progressed the candidate became increasingly restless with this strategy. The most important decisions facing the nation, he felt, were international, not domes- tic. By late October he was telling audiences,

'Adlai E. Stevenson, The New America (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), pp. xiv-xvi.

13.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

"I want to talk with you about the most serious failure of the Republican Administra- tion. I mean its failure in conducting our foreign policy." And so "The New America" fell into disuse as Stevenson fought his lost cause over terrain on which he knew himself to be at a decided disadvantage, but to which he seemed to be almost magnetically attracted.

The primary issue on which Stevenson challenged the President was the suspension of hydrogen bomb testing. The discussion was largely free of acrimony and innuendo. Rarely has an American election produced two candidates so intolerant of demagoguery and political overkill. It is instructive, how- ever, as an example of how badly issues of such complexity are handled under the best of circumstances, of how befuddled it left the voters, and of how little it influenced the canvass.

The two candidates differed sharply on whether nuclear weapons policy was a proper subject for a campaign airing. Stevenson said, "I have chosen to make this proposal for peace a political issue. But I think this is good. After all, the issue is mankind's survival, and man should debate it, fully, openly, and in democracy's established processes." "I regret this fact," replied Eisenhower. "The manner in which the issue has been raised [i.e., in a political campaign] can lead only to confusion at home and misunderstanding abroad.... This specific matter is manifestly not a subject for detailed public discussion-for obvious security reasons."

Both candidates were partly right (or partly wrong). In retrospect, one could say that the American people were given some useful in- formation with some clear differences between the candidates. They were also given con- flicting scientific evidence that could "lead only to confusion" and some gaps in infor- mation for "security reasons."

Even in the hands of such honorable men as Stevenson and Eisenhower the discussion contained distortion. Stevenson changed his position in mid-passage. On April 21 he had

14.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Hess

said, "We should give prompt and earnest consideration to stopping further tests of the hydrogen bomb... ." By October 29 he was contending, "I have never proposed the prohibition of tests of other than large H- bombs." (Between the two statements was a distinction of some significance.) Eisenhower issued a 10-point statement on "the govern- ment's policies and actions with respect to the development and testing of nuclear weapons"; Stevenson responded selectively to only half the points; Eisenhower responded not at all to some of Stevenson's arguments.

In a narrow sense, the point at issue boiled down to Stevenson's contention that the United States should unilaterally stop the testing of large H-bombs and Eisenhower's contention that the United States should not. But more broadly, the contenders were off on different tracks. Stevenson's concern was with what his opponent called "the lesser matter of the testing of our nuclear weapons"; Eisenhower's concern was with the general question of disarmament: "The critical issue is not a matter of testing nuclear weapons," he said, "but of preventing their use in nuclear war."

The issue, the most important substantive one of the campaign, simply was never joined. As is always the case, it was not equally in the candidates' interests to meet the opposition on common ground. They did not. There was no force or mechanism to hold them accountable. And anyway, "responsible de- bate" is not the name of the game. The 1964 "Horror Show"

If the 1956 exposition of nuclear policy illustrates what one can expect of serious campaign discussion at its "best," the same issue in 1964 shows how deep is the abyss into which Presidential politics can descend.

To understand how the 1964 campaign could have turned into "a steady diet of horror stories" (Stephen Shadegg's phrase), it is necessary to recall that at the time of his nomination Barry Goldwater was a member

15.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

of the Armed Services Committee of the United States Senate; a member of the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee; a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Department of Defense; a member of the Ap- propriations Subcommittee on Military Con- struction; and a Major General in the Air Force Reserves. Goldwater was fascinated by and possessed a good deal of information on the technicalities of U.S. defense posture. It was his attempt to translate these technical- ities into the idiom of political discourse that led to his image as "a nuclear bomber."

In the hands of a candidate with greater finesse, the problem of how to turn the average voter into an instant expert on military hardware and strategy still would have remained. The Republican nominee seemed to view the campaign primarily as "an educational process," although its unsuitabil- ity for this purpose has been repeatedly illustrated.

Goldwater probably should have scared the American people as a potential President. Even for those who agreed with his philos- ophy, his offhand remarks gave little comfort that he had the ability to be a prudent leader. But what here concerns us is the evolution of discourse into symbols during a campaign.

Take the case of Goldwater's "nuclear de- foliation proposal." The following exchange is from the A.B.C.-TV program, "Issues and Answers," May 24, 1964:

Howard K. Smith: "Now, a lot of the supply lines seem to run in on the Laotian border, in any case through jungles and long trails. How could you interdict those? There's no good ...."

Goldwater: "Well, it's-it's not as easy as it sounds because there aren't trails that are out in the open. I've been in these rain forests of Burma and north China-south China. You're perfectly safe wandering through them as far as an enemy hurting you. There have been several suggestions made. I don't think that we would use any of them, but defoliation of the forest by

16.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Hess

low-yield atomic weapons could well be done. When you remove the foliage you remove the cover."

Three days later at a Los Angeles press conference Goldwater tried to clarify his statement:

". .. the fact of the matter is that I-in answer to the question, a technical ques- tion, not a question of what would you do but a question of how could it be done, and mind you this question has been dis- cussed and discussed and discussed by the military and by its study groups all over this country. I can't reveal the nature of them because they're highly classified. But I was merely answering a question put to me in a decent way by a news commentator and I recognized at the outset that we wouldn't use them, I never have advocated it, I don't advocate it now. But times might change. I don't think they will, I think we can stop those supplies without resorting to that, I was merely answering a question." Goldwater was right, of course: It was

possible-militarily-to defoliate forests; he had not advocated it. Or had he? "But times might change," he said. And why was he talking about such nuclear possibilities at all, especially if he opposed them? Smith had not asked him specifically about defoliation; and even if he had that was hardly a sufficient reason in politics.

From such remarks, it was only a natural political progression to the Rockefeller mail- ing that went out to two million registered Republicans in the crucial California primary, "Who Do You Want in the Room with the H-bomb?" to Scranton's open letter to Gold- water at the convention, "You have too often casually prescribed nuclear war as a solution to a troubled world," to that TV spot of the girl with the daisy.

On a whole range of issues, foreign and domestic, Goldwater had delivered on his promise to offer the voters "a choice, not an echo." But it takes two to debate. And John- son preferred to ignore his opponent's argu- ments; to have done otherwise would have both advertised them and lent respectability

17.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

to them. The purpose of an election campaign in the American political tradition is not to arrive at The Truth, but to win. For Johnson (as it had been for Rockefeller and Scranton), the temptation was irresistible to turn Gold- water's statements into emotionally-charged shorthand. Moreover, in focusing on nuclear weapons policy, often in a crude manner, Goldwater raised the sorts of images that do not contribute to enlightened electioneering. "You mention the word nuclear," Goldwater was to remark, "and all they can think of is the big mushroom cloud, the red blast and twenty million dead."'

Questions of nuclear policy, as ventilated in 1956 and 1964 (and by George Wallace's running mate, Curtis LeMay, in 1968), show how ill-suited are matters of high complexity and technical content for discussion in a Presidential campaign, while two other ques- tions that were raised in 1960, the "missile gap" and Cuba, illustrate the problems of raising issues that are shrouded in security.

What Missile Gap?

Following the successful Soviet missile tests of 1957 the issue of the relative missile produc- tion of the two superpowers moved in gla- cieresque fashion from Pentagon to Congress to campaign, gathering momentum year by year, while losing those rough edges of doubt, detail, and perspective that would have slowed its descent into political rhetoric.

Eisenhower tried to apply the brakes. "Too many of these generals have all sorts of ideas," he told a press conference in commenting on a statement by Thomas S. Power, the SAC commander. "I have been long enough in the military service," said the President, "that I assure you that I cannot be particularly dis- turbed because everybody with a parochial viewpoint all over the place comes along and says that the bosses know nothing about it."

By 1959 the issue had been expropriated from the generals by Senator Stuart Syming-

sTheodore H. White, The Making of the President 1964 (New York: Atheneum, 1965), pp. 209-210.

18.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Hess

ton, a former Air Force Secretary, and, more important at the time, a potential Democratic candidate for President. The Senator charged that Soviet capabilities would shortly give them a three-to-one lead over the United States in ICBM's and that "the intelligence books had been juggled so that the budget books may be balanced." Defense Secretary Gates responded that "there is no deterrent gap."

During the fall campaign Kennedy did not stress the "missile gap," although it was a part of his stump vocabulary: "The Republican party, the same party which gave us the mis- sile gap. .."-(Minneapolis, October 1); "I have confidence in our ability to close the missile gap . . ."-(St. Louis, October 2).

Less than a month after Kennedy's inaugu- ration, Defense Secretary McNamara, now privy to the appropriate classified documents, announced to a press conference that there was no missile gap, "although his remarks were officially not for attribution." The Presi- dent promptly replied that the matter was still under Defense Department study, but by Thanksgiving word was out that Kennedy too had formally buried the issue.

Explanation must have been cold comfort for Richard Nixon. In an analysis of 1956- 1960 voters who switched from one party to the other, James Sundquist concluded that the second most helpful issue for the Democrats was the "missile gap" (after "unemploy- ment").9

The Castro Convertible

The Cuban issue was raised by John Kennedy in a surprisingly militant statement on October 20, 1960:

"We must attempt to strengthen the non- Batista democratic anti-Castro forces in exile, and in Cuba itself, who offer eventual hope of overthrowing Castro. Thus far these fighters for freedom have had virtu- ally no support from our government."

'James L. Sundquist, Politics and Policy (Washington: Brookings, 1968), pp. 466-467.

19.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

What Kennedy had proposed, of course, was the covert C.I.A. operation then in prepa- ration, which would ultimately be transformed into the Bay of Pigs invasion. Nixon, who had been its advocate within Administration coun- cils, thought that Kennedy had been briefed on the plans and was furious at his opponent for "jeopardizing the security of a United States foreign policy operation."

The day after Kennedy's statement the two candidates met for their final TV debate. When the question of the Cuba proposal was raised, Nixon attacked:

"... if we were to follow that recom- mendation... we would lose all of our friends in Latin America, we would prob- ably be condemned in the United Nations, and we would not accomplish our objec- tive . . . It would be an open invitation for Mr. Khrushchev... to come into Latin America and to engage us in what would be a civil war and possibly even worse than that."

Nixon was to explain later that this tack was the "only thing I could do. The covert operation had to be protected at all costs. I must not even suggest by implication that the United States was rendering aid to rebel forces in and out of Cuba. In fact, I must go to the other extreme: I must attack the Kennedy pro- posal to provide such aid as wrong and irre- sponsible because it would violate our treaty commitments."10

Whether this was the "only thing" that Nixon could have done is a moot question. The point is that a re-ponsible candidate will engage in what politicians call "honest lying" to maintain national security secrecy. And for that voter who is prayerfully trying to weigh the merits of each issue, he must somehow factor in the possibility that what he is being told is not true. So secrecy becomes another roadblock in the path of rational campaign rhetoric. One more puzzlement: Had the Re- publican party won in 1960, Douglass Cater

1"Richard M. Nixon, Six Crises (New York: Pocket Books, 1962), pp. 378-384.

20.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Hess

writes, "how Nixon as President would have dealt with the C.I.A. operation he so vigor- ously denounced remains to be speculated.""

Nixon's "dilemma" over Cuba suggests the liabilities of incumbency. Yet, on balance, the advantages of incumbency in dealing with foreign policy in a Presidential campaign are substantially greater. At its most elemental, how does one measure the worth to President Franklin Roosevelt, the wartime Commander in Chief, of opening his 1944 campaign for re- election from the deck of a destroyer, its guns as background, as thousands of workers lined the docks of Bremerton, Washington, and mil- lions more listened over nationwide radio? Or what better exit line can one imagine than President Lyndon Johnson, after Khrushchev was overthrown in the midst of the 1964 cam- paign, saying to reporters, "I'm sorry I can't stay around and talk with you-[Soviet] Ambassador Dobrynin is coming over to see me . ."x12

To run against a President is to live in con- stant terror of being upstaged: Will he effect a Vietnam settlement on the eve of the election, as the Nixon camp feared in 1968, as McGovern fears now? Will a last minute crisis, such as in 1956, produce a rally 'round the President re- sponse among the voters? Will unexpected world events, such as in 1964, give the in- cumbent an opportunity to play "statesman" while all around him are merely "office- seekers"? While the President hardly has total control over the world situation, his opponent has none. Johnson's request for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in August of 1964 boosted his rating on "handling Vietnam" in the Harris Poll from 42 percent to 72 percent. After meeting with Soviet Premier Kosygin in 1967, Johnson's popularity jumped 11 points, al- though a majority of those interviewed did not feel that the Glassboro Summit "brought peace closer" and only 19 percent thought the

"Douglass Cater, Power in Washington (New York: Vintage, 1964), p. 63.

12White, op. cit., p. 372.

21.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

meetings would help settle the Vietnam war. In the collective public mind the President was advantaged by an event that was largely perceived as useless-at least he had done something.

If the incumbent seeking reelection also happens to be a Republican, the odds rise measurably that he will try to keep the cam- paign centered on foreign policy. Among those who see a difference between the parties' capacities to handle foreign policy, the balance of expectations has favored the Republicans by better than five-to-one in 1956 and two-to- one in 1960 and 1968. (Only in the Goldwater campaign was the margin reversed in favor of the Democrats.) And a simulation of the 1960 election by M.I.T. political scientists contends that Nixon would have "won easily" if the campaign had been riveted on foreign policy issues.13 Nevertheless, Vietnam presents a special problem for the Republicans in 1972. "I have chosen a plan for peace," Nixon told the American people in November of 1969. "If it does succeed, what the critics say now won't matter. If it does not succeed, anything I say then [in the campaign] won't matter."

Of course the timing of foreign crises be- comes a matter of some moment. The Tet offensive, coming in January of 1968, knocked Johnson out of the race. Would it have elected him if it had come in October? The existence of a volatile international situation during the fall campaign works to the advan- tage of the in-power party (1956); a period of peaceful calm does not (1960). Since foreign policy is an issue of intensity not extensity, in 1972 that most paradoxical of American Presidents, Richard Nixon, could be faced with his final paradox: The more successful he is at international crisis management, the less likely is foreign policy to dominate the cam- paign; the less foreign policy dominates the campaign, the more likely is he to be defeated.

"3Ithiel de Sola Pool, Robert P. Abelson, Samuel L. Popkin, Candidates, Issues, and Strategies: A Com- puter Simulation of the 1960 and 1964 Presidential Elections (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1964), p. 89.

22.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 22:25:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions