Blaming 'The Sixties': The political use of an era, 1980--2004.

摘要

This study looks at four presidents using competing versions of the 1960s for political gain in the years 1980 to 2004. It shows how Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush spoke of and wrote about events and people during the years 1960 to 1974. It focuses on the conscious manipulation of five topics: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement, and the phrase "The Sixties."; The research used close analysis of more than twenty years of presidential communications: official speeches, radio and television addresses, announcements, proclamations, statements, interviews, exchanges with reporters, comments, remarks, and memoirs. Research was also conducted at the speechwriting archives of the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush Presidential Libraries. And more than 120 political figures, politicians, cabinet members, speechwriters, advisors, strategists, historians, journalists, and activists from across the political spectrum responded to interview requests either in person or by telephone (recorded on audio tape) or via correspondence. They spoke candidly, in detail, on the record, and often at length on the political and social legacies of the 1960s and how the presidents since 1980 perceived recent history and modified it for public consumption to suit their purposes.; Between 1980 and 2004, liberals and conservatives used selective memories of separate portions of the "The Sixties" (1960 to 1974) to gather voter support for candidates and justify policy positions. Liberals evoked the positive associations of "the good sixties" (1960--1963) while conservatives called up the specter of "the bad sixties" (1964--1974).