Trevor B. McCrisken

Obama's Drone War

At the beginning of his presidency, Barack Obama vowed to fight terrorism with greater effectiveness and moral rectitude than his predecessor. He insisted that ‘we must adhere to our values as dili...

The Housewife, the Vigilante and the Cigarette‐Smoking Man: The CIA and Television, 1975–2001

Reeling from the revelations about its operations in the 1970s, the CIA set up an Office of Public Affairs to improve its public image. Among its activities was greater engagement with television producers, but it largely failed to lead to more US drama series portraying the CIA in a better light. This article, however, analyses those few TV dramas that did characterize the CIA in the 1980s and 1990s – Scarecrow and Mrs King, The Equalizer and The X-Files. Each series gave a critique of the CIA and its practices while offering alternative pathways to redeeming the organization so that it could better serve US security and domestic safety. They are examples of how television dramas can ask questions, engage with critical issues in contemporary society, and push the boundaries of what we expect to see in our televisual entertainment. They may not have offered very much insight into what the CIA was actually doing globally, but their storylines did confront the public image of the CIA, question its ethos and its methods, and offer some alternative viewpoints on how the Agency might develop its role and approach. Each series attempted to push beyond stereotypes of the CIA and its agents, upset the usual balance between gender roles and refused to give the kind of closed, unambiguous viewpoints that so many US television dramas offered their audiences during the period. They contributed significantly to the cultural representation of the CIA as the Cold War drew to a close.

The Republican primaries

The Republican Party nomination for president of the United States of America in 2008 was considered by some observers a poisoned chalice.1 Only once since the 1950s had a party maintained control of the White House for more than two consecutive terms, when George H. W. Bush won a single term in office after eight years of Ronald Reagan. Bush had been vice president for those eight years, however, and Reagan had left office with a higher approval rating than any U.S. president since polling began in the 1930s. In 2008, in contrast, the outgoing two- term Republican president, George W. Bush, had among the lowest public approval ratings of any U.S. president. As the primary season began in January 2008, support for Bush was at a mere 32 percent.2 This time there was also no heir apparent, because the equally unpopu- lar vice president Richard (“Dick”) Cheney was not interested in the nomination. The Republican Party had already suffered at the hands of the electorate in the 2006 congressional elections, largely as a reac- tion against Bush’s policies. Republican fortunes appeared to be at a distinctly low ebb. Meanwhile, Democrats were getting fired up not only in anticipation of finally ushering Bush out of the White House but also by the prospect of electing either the first woman or the first African American to the highest office in the land.

Saving the Good War: Hollywood and World War Ii In the Post-Cold War World

World War II holds a celebrated position in the benign meta-narrative of American foreign relations. This narrative holds that the United States is a benevolent nation whose foreign policy is based not on pure self-interest but rather on the greater good of all humankind. As H. W. Brands suggests: ‘If a single theme pervades the history of American thinking about the world, it is that the United States has a peculiar obligation to better the lot of humanity… Americans have commonly spoken and acted as though the salvation of the world depended on them.’ According to this meta-narrative, the US has only ever engaged in foreign policy that, while it may have advanced the national interest, also served some higher purpose in the history of human progress: the Spanish–American War was fought to free the Cuban people and others from domination by imperial Spain; World War I was fought to ‘make the world safe for democracy’; World War II was designed to defeat the evils of Nazism and Japanese expansionism whilst establishing the ‘Four Freedoms’ for all peoples; the Cold War was pursued in order to defend the rights of free peoples everywhere against totalitarian aggression and subversion; and the New World Order and more recently the ‘War on Terror’ were established to defend civilised peoples the world over against the uncertainties and dangers of the post-Cold War era.

Gerald Ford and the Time for Healing

‘My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.’1 With these words, Gerald R. Ford signalled to the American people that, after years tainted by civil unrest, a divisive war, the assassinations of major public figures, and widespread political scandal, his presidency would offer the United States ‘a time to heal’. Ford recognized that the nation was ‘caught up in a crisis of confidence’ and that, like Abraham Lincoln in the Civil War, it was his job to ‘bind up the wounds’.2 As Ford’s transition team concluded, the ‘Restoration of confidence and trust of the American people in their political leadership, institutions and processes’ would be the first priority of the new administration.3

Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’

William Jefferson Clinton defeated George Bush in the 1992 presidential election largely by focusing on the nation’s troubled domestic agenda. The Democrats’ rallying cry against Bush was ‘It’s the economy stupid!’ Clinton entered the White House in January 1993 promising to focus on the domestic problems facing Americans, and particularly the failing US economy. Nonetheless, Clinton also had to address an international agenda that was much changed from that faced by other post-Vietnam presidents. With the Cold War now firmly consigned to history, scholars, analysts and practitioners alike attempted to provide a comprehensive framework through which a far more unpredictable and potentially unstable international system could be understood. During his two terms in office, President Clinton would give an increasingly greater emphasis to foreign policy and preside over more uses of military force than any of his post-Vietnam predecessors. As a result, he would face many of the same questions regarding the continuing influence of the legacy of Vietnam. He would also draw upon the belief in American exceptionalism in an attempt to pursue a foreign policy that he claimed was not divorced from ‘the moral principles most Americans share’.1

Ronald Reagan — ‘America is Back’

When Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981, the domestic challenges of inflation, unemployment, interest rates and energy shortages dominated the American political agenda. Despite the American hostages in Iran being released as he was inaugurated, Reagan was also confronted with problems on the international scene that had contributed to his predecessor’s failure to secure a second term. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan continued and Soviet troops now seemed poised to cross the Polish border to curb the growing power of Solidarity. In the US, the Committee on the Present Danger, of which Reagan was a member, warned of an alleged window of vulnerability in US strategic strength and pressed for a more vigilant and aggressive focus on the perceived Soviet threat to American security interests. The Reagan administration was determined to meet these challenges and thereby restore American power and strength in world affairs, resolve the economic crisis at home, and renew the self-confidence of the American people. To achieve these ends Reagan would appeal, not unlike his predecessors, to the traditional belief in American exceptionalism to which he subscribed wholeheartedly.

Conclusions: American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

The terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001 were carried out exactly eleven years to the day that George W. Bush’s father first proclaimed his vision of a New World Order to the US Congress. Like his father and other presidents before him, George W. Bush responded to this crisis using words and phrases familiar to the American public. He claimed the US had been attacked because ‘we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world’.1 Bush was evoking the belief in American exceptionalism that, as we have seen, has persisted throughout American history. The belief has been perceived and expressed in different ways by different people at different times, but the basic premise has remained constant: the United States is a special nation with a special destiny, not only unique but superior among nations. This belief has survived and flourished despite the ample evidence available to Americans that suggests their nation is no more exceptional than any other nation.

American Exceptionalism: An Introduction

On September 11, 2001, following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC, United States President George W. Bush declared that: ‘America was targeted for the attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.’ Americans would never forget this day but, Bush assured them, the US was ‘a great nation’ that would ‘go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world’.1 In the midst of a horrific tragedy, the president was drawing upon a long tradition in American public rhetoric that is informed by a belief in American exceptionalism.2

Jimmy Carter — Morality and the Crisis of Confidence

Jimmy Carter was elected President of the United States largely because he was a Washington outsider, untainted by the years of torment surrounding Vietnam and Watergate. Indeed, before he sought the Democratic nomination for presidential candidate, few people outside his native Georgia had heard of this former naval officer, nuclear engineer, and peanut farmer. Carter made it clear in his election campaign that he understood and shared the people’s pain, doubt and failing confidence following the defeat in Vietnam and the Watergate scandals. He believed America’s moral compass had been lost, that traditional beliefs at the very heart of what it meant to be an American had been thrown into question by years of government lies, failure and corruption. Carter, though, was not about to give up on those beliefs. He was confident that by rededicating the nation to the principles upon which it was founded, Americans could once again believe in themselves and the special role their nation had to play in human history.