Call to Arms: The Propagandistic Rhetoric of Presidential Petitions for War

Abstract

Eleven times in the history of the United States has a President gone before Congress, asked for a declaration of war against a sovereign foreign state, and received it. This thesis contends that although there may be valid reasons to justify a petition for war, those reasons, if they exist, are secondary to propaganda that appeals to a public's fears, weaknesses, collective history, and desire for authoritative leadership. Chapter I of this study is an overview of propaganda -- its origin as a device of the Roman Catholic Church for propagating the gospel of Christ throughout Europe and the Americas, its evolution into a device for promoting war, and its acquisition of sinister connotations in the 20th century. Also discussed will be the Aristotelian concept of classical rhetoric, and the not so easy to define differences between rhetorical persuasion and propagandistic persuasion. Chapters II, III, and IV examine the discourse of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, and George W. Bush, and function to identify and extract the propagandistic rhetoric in the context of a rhetorical problem. And the final chapter will discuss the recurring micro and macro level manifestations of Presidential crisis rhetoric, the Historical American, fear inducing rhetoric, and the placement of the enemy in an ideological context for the overall purpose of gaining public support for Presidential calls to arms.