American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

American Exceptionalism
and the Legacy of Vietnam
US Foreign Policy since 1974

Trevor B. McCrisken
University of Warwick
© Trevor B. McCrisken 2003
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McCrisken, Trevor B., 1968–
American exceptionalism and the legacy of Vietnam: US foreign policy
since 1974/ Trevor B. McCrisken
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.

1. United States – Foreign relations – 1945–1989. 2. United States – Foreign

relations – 1989– 3. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961–1975 – Influence. 4. National
characteristics, American. 5. Political culture – United States – History –
20th century. 6. Nationalism – United States – History – 20th century. I. Title.

E840.M385 2003
327.73⬘009⬘045—dc21 2003051433

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03
For Sarah
Contents

Acknowledgements viii

1 American Exceptionalism: An Introduction 1

2 The End of American Exceptionalism? The Cold War

and Vietnam 20

3 Gerald Ford and the Time for Healing 40

4 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 56

5 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 85

6 George Bush – the ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 131

7 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ 159

8 Conclusions: American Exceptionalism and the

Legacy of Vietnam 183

Notes 194

Select Bibliography 224

Index 227

vii
Acknowledgements

This book has been a long time in the making and I owe countless people
my thanks for their support, not all of whom can be mentioned here.
Hopefully you all know who you are. This book began life as a doctoral
thesis at the University of Sussex. I owe my greatest debt of gratitude to
Michael Dunne, my supervisor, for his tireless support, encouragement,
guidance and friendship. Many thanks also to Steve Burman at Sussex and
John Dumbrell of Keele University who were my examiners and whose crit-
ical judgements helped me transform the thesis into this book. David Ryan
of Leicester De Montfort University deserves special thanks for his insight-
ful comments, support and friendship during the book’s revision process.
I hope the late Steve Reilly knew how much he impacted on my professional
development, particularly by first introducing me to the idea of American
exceptionalism. I am grateful to Lois Vietri of the University of Maryland
who has contributed so much to my understanding of the Vietnam War and
its legacies, as well as being a great friend and mentor. Many thanks to Bill
Kincade of American University, Washington, DC, who also helped nurture
some of the ideas discussed here. Thanks are due to Alexander DeConde,
Justus Donecke, Matthew Jones, Thomas Paterson, and Simon Thompson
who provided helpful comments on early outlines of my research, and to
Fredrik Logevall for his support and asking me to write on exceptionalism
for the Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy. I also owe massive thanks to
my colleagues at Sussex, Middlesex, Lancaster and Oxford and to all the
students upon whom I have inflicted my ideas over the past few years
at those institutions – you kept me very busy but you also helped keep
me sane.
The research for this book was conducted at the Gerald R. Ford Library in
Ann Arbor, Michigan; the Jimmy Carter Library in Atlanta, Georgia; the
Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California; the University of Sussex
Library; Lancaster University Library; the Rothermere American Institute
and Vere Harmsworth Library at Oxford; and the Resource Centre of the
United States Embassy in London. I would like to thank all the librarians
and archivists who assisted my research: in particular Leesa Tobin and her
colleagues at the Ford Library, James Yancey at the Carter Library, and Diane
Barrie, Greg Cumming and Mike Duggan at the Reagan Library. I also wish
to thank the Humanities Research Board of the British Academy for grant-
ing me three years of financial support including additional funds which
made possible my visit to the Presidential Libraries in the United States.
Special thanks go to my family and friends on both sides of the Atlantic
for their ongoing love and support: especially my parents, Jenny and

viii
 Acknowledgements ix

Ray McCrisken, who always believed in me and encouraged and supported

me in ways they may never fully know. Most of all, for her limitless love,
friendship, patience, pep talks, suggestions, for driving me around the US
and so much more, I am forever grateful and indebted to Sarah Brammeier
McCrisken.

TREVOR B. MCCRISKEN
Rothermere American Institute
University of Oxford
December 2002
1
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
The term American exceptionalism describes the belief that the United
States is an extraordinary nation with a special role to play in human history;
not only unique but also superior among nations. Alexis de Tocqueville was
the first to use the term ‘exceptional’ to describe the US and the American
people in his classic work Democracy in America (1835–40), but the idea of
America as an exceptional entity can be traced back to the earliest colonial
times.3 The belief in American exceptionalism forms a core element of
American national identity and American nationalism. As a central part of
the American belief system it contributes to what Benedict Anderson would
call America’s ‘imagined community’.4
The ways in which US foreign policy is made and conducted are influ-
enced by the underlying assumptions Americans hold about themselves and
the rest of the world. Like most nations, the United States has a distinctive
pattern of policy making that is determined by unique aspects of its national
culture. Each country’s historical and cultural heritage, its montage of
national beliefs and experience – its national identity – has an influence,
whether consciously or not, upon the way it practices politics. US foreign
policy is driven by a variety of causal factors including strategic, economic,
political, and bureaucratic interests; international and domestic pressures;
the personalities and agendas of policy makers; and the actions of other
nations. However, the belief in exceptionalism, since it is a core element of

1
2 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

American national identity, has an important underlying influence on foreign

policy activity. This belief is one of the main ideas that, according to Michael
Hunt, has ‘performed for generations of Americans that essential function of
giving order to their vision of the world and defining their place in it’.5 The
belief in American exceptionalism provides an essential element of the cultural
and intellectual framework for the making and conduct of US foreign policy.
Two main strands of exceptionalist thought have influenced US foreign pol-
icy. One is that of the United States as an exemplar nation, as reflected in ideas
such as the ‘city upon a hill’, ‘nonentangling alliances’, ‘anti-imperialism’,
‘isolationism’, and ‘Fortress America’. The other, often more dominant
strand is that of the missionary nation, as represented by the ideas of ‘man-
ifest destiny’, ‘imperialism’, ‘internationalism’, ‘leader of the free world’,
‘modernization theory’, and the ‘new world order’. Both strands have been
present throughout the history of US foreign relations and are analysed in
this book.
The concept of the exceptional nature of the United States, however, has
been a matter of much debate since sociologist Daniel Bell declared the end
of American exceptionalism in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and
Watergate. Scholars continue to dispute whether or not the US is exceptional
in some measurable way and whether the concept of American exception-
alism can be used in ways which are theoretically fruitful. This debate,
however, is missing a more crucial and indeed more interesting point – that
regardless of whether or not the US is actually exceptional, the belief in
American exceptionalism persists. A large number of US citizens, including
public officials, believe that their country is exceptional and this informs the
way American society functions; indeed, the idea continues to be a central
element of American national identity. This book shows how the notion of
American exceptionalism forms part of the American belief system, the
nation’s cultural reality, and more importantly how this belief has informed
and continues to inform US foreign policy making. It is argued that the
belief in American exceptionalism was severely shaken by the American
defeat in Vietnam, but that the belief survived and has remained a major
influence on post-Vietnam US foreign policy.

American exceptionalism: the scholarly debate

In 1975, Daniel Bell declared the demise of American exceptionalism:

‘Today, the belief in American exceptionalism has vanished with the end of
empire, the weakening of power, the loss of faith in the nation’s future.’
Quite simply, Bell concluded, the US had become ‘a nation like all other
nations’. The only remaining vestige of the exceptional nature of the United
States was its constitutional system, but any sense of destiny or special-
ness had been shattered.6 Fourteen years later, however, Bell reopened the
scholarly debate by arguing that in the US ‘there has always been a strong
 American Exceptionalism: An Introduction 3

belief in American exceptionalism. From the start, Americans have believed

that destiny has marked their country as different from all others – that the
United States is, in Lincoln’s marvelous phrase, “an almost chosen nation” ’.
Despite his earlier conclusions, Bell now suggested several social and politi-
cal areas in which the question of American exceptionalism continued to be
prevalent and thus deserved further academic exploration.7
According to Byron Shafer, there are three main ways to approach the
question of American exceptionalism. The first concerns the ‘simple dis-
tinctiveness’ of the United States, but as Shafer suggests ‘all societies,
observed closely enough, are distinctive’. The second contends that the US
does not fit a ‘general model of societal progression for the developed
nations of the world’. But such a normative model of societal development
does not, and never has, existed. Certainly some countries have developed
in similar ways but each society has its differences in outcomes, methods,
timescales and other elements determined by various factors unique to
national, regional and local environments. This returns us to the first point
that all nations are different, so why should American exceptionalism be of
any interest or importance? Where Shafer finds his answer is in ‘an effort to
highlight distinctively American clusters of characteristics, even distinctively
American ways of organising the major realms of social life’. Thus, the essays
collected by Shafer reveal ‘peculiarly American approaches to major social
sectors’ such as politics, economics, religion, culture, education and public
policy.8 This approach has been taken up by several scholars in recent years
focusing on a wide variety of topics ranging from American political
exceptionalism to the exceptional nature of American sports culture.9 Most
comprehensively, Seymour Martin Lipset has considered unique American
aspects of ideology, politics, economics, religion, welfare, unionism, race
relations and intellectualism. Lipset sees American exceptionalism as a
‘double-edged sword’ since there are many negative as well as positive traits
in American society that are exceptional in comparison with other coun-
tries. Exceptionally high crime rates, levels of violence, prison populations,
divorce rates, teenage pregnancies, income inequality, and exceptionally
low levels of electoral participation, along with a lack of social welfare pro-
grammes, mean the US can be considered ‘the worst as well as the best,
depending on which quality is being addressed’.10
Judging particular exceptions to determine whether the US is the best or
worst nation in that realm reveals another of the major problems with
American exceptionalism. As Bell observes, the ‘idea of “exceptionalism,” as
it has been used to describe American history and institutions, assumes not
only that the US has been unlike other nations, but that it is exceptional in
the sense of being exemplary’.11 As the work of Lipset and others has shown,
American differences can be identified and even evaluated but any declara-
tions of superiority over alternative ways of approaching social realms can
only be based on subjective criteria. For example, it is difficult, if not
4 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

impossible, to determine objectively whether the US political system

is better than any alternative forms of government. The same can be said of
any other identifiable American exception. To attempt to prove that the US
is indeed an exceptional nation, in the sense of being not only unique but
also superior, is a highly problematic exercise. Rather than debate the truth
of whether the US is actually exceptional, or indeed superior, in any mea-
surable way, it is more important and interesting to focus on the fact that
Americans generally believe in the myth or rhetoric of American exception-
alism and act on those beliefs.

American exceptionalism and US foreign policy

The focus in this book, then, is on the belief in American exceptionalism and
its influence on US foreign policy rather than directly addressing the ques-
tion of whether US foreign policy itself can be measured as exceptional.
Indeed, Joseph Lepgold and Timothy McKeown have found little empirical
evidence for claims that American foreign policy behaviour is exceptional.12
Faults and blemishes riddle American history as much as that of any other
nation and in foreign policy the US has a far from untarnished record. The
colonization and expansion of the new nation were accompanied by the dis-
placement or destruction of the indigenous population. Times of war have
been plentiful, with the US imposing its will on peoples in countries as dis-
tant as the Philippines and Vietnam, ordering the internment of large num-
bers of its own citizens, and committing wartime atrocities like any other
nation. Yet despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary, there has
remained throughout American history a strong belief that the United States
is an exceptional nation, not only unique but also superior among nations.
Lepgold and McKeown observe that American leaders make ‘unusual
internal justifications’ for their actions abroad, using ‘idiosyncratic symbols
and metaphors … based on national self-image and values’. It is typical in all
societies for governments to garner support for their policies ‘by linking
them to general societal norms, usually through political symbols that have
reference to deeply shared values’. For Americans these symbols are ‘unusu-
ally linked to domestic rather than external values’. American society is held
together by shared ideas and values more than shared culture or heritage.
Lepgold and McKeown argue, therefore, that:

American mass society has had little use for the symbols of competitive
nationalism in the Old World sense or the geopolitical concepts that
went with it. Lacking the shared cognitive maps that other peoples
develop to deal with tangible disputes over territory and resources,
Americans typically do not grasp the politics, history, and social forces
out of which foreign policy is typically made elsewhere. US foreign
behavior abroad is thus justified through general formulas and slogans.13
 American Exceptionalism: An Introduction 5

Lepgold and McKeown do not go on to discuss what symbols and metaphors

are used by Americans in this context. The argument here, though, is that
the belief in American exceptionalism most commonly provides these
symbols and metaphors.
The majority of the academic works on the history and practice of US
foreign relations neglect or discount the influence of exceptionalist beliefs.
Nevertheless, a growing body of scholarship does recognize that the belief
in American exceptionalism has been a persistent and major underlying
influence on US foreign policy. These works recognize that despite the inher-
ent contradictions and frequent circularity of exceptionalist thought, the
‘recurring rhetoric’ of the belief in American exceptionalism reveals it to be
‘a cultural reality and potent force’.14 Michael Hunt, for example, attempts
to identify an ‘American foreign-policy ideology inspired by the cultural
approach’. Such an ideology would consist of ‘a relatively coherent, emo-
tionally charged, and conceptually interlocking set of ideas [that] would
have to reflect the self-image of those who espoused them and to define
a relationship with the world consonant with that self-image’. Hunt argues
that the ‘capstone idea’ that has underscored US foreign policy from its
beginnings is that of American greatness, an idea that reveals Americans as
‘a special people with a unique destiny’.15
This ‘self-image of uniqueness’, together with a ‘secular fundamentalism’
and a ‘strident moralism’, are among the core traditions that according to
Roger Whitcomb constitute the ‘collective set of values that energize
[Americans]’ and form a national style of foreign policy.16 Americans ‘came
to the view early in their experience that they were an exceptional
people … From the days of Manifest Destiny to the era of the American
Century, the foreign policy of the nation would be evocative of this sense
of uniqueness’. Whitcomb suggests that ‘Morality became the reference
point of uniqueness; Americans were simply “better” than the common
run-of-the-mill peoples of the world’. US foreign policy would often be
underpinned by ‘the belief that there is a fundamental difference between
right and wrong; that right must be supported, that wrong must be sup-
pressed, and that error and evil can have no place when compared with the
“truth” ’. The US was, therefore, ‘uniquely qualified to lead the forces of free-
dom’ in the world.17 H. W. Brands agrees that: ‘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.’ He argues that
‘Americans have commonly spoken and acted as though the salvation of the
world depended on them’. This ‘persistent theme in American thought,
speech and writing about the world’ could be called a ‘manifestation of
American exceptionalism’. Brands recognizes that the major protagonists of
such thinking can be divided into two groups – the ‘exemplarists’ and the
‘vindicators’.18 These groupings correspond to the two main strands of
exceptionalist thought examined here: the exemplary and the missionary.
6 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Other authors have recently addressed the impact of the belief in

American exceptionalism on specific periods in US foreign policy. John
Fousek has explored the cultural roots of the Cold War and argues that US
policy and the broad consensus that supported it were enveloped within a
discursive ‘framework of American greatness’. He concludes that American
Cold War policy was underpinned by a discourse of ‘American nationalist
globalism’ that combined ‘traditional nationalist ideologies of American
chosenness, mission, and destiny with the emerging notion that the entire
world was now the proper sphere of concern for US foreign policy’.19 The
influence of the belief in American exceptionalism on US public diplomacy
at the end of the Cold War has also been analysed. Siobhán McEvoy-Levy
has found that during this period of ‘consensus- and paradigm-shattering
transition’, Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton both utilized the
‘common institution’ of traditional exceptionalist rhetoric to overcome the
‘cognitive dissonance’ among American elites and the public concerning
the appropriate post-Cold War role for the US.20
This growing body of work on the belief in American exceptionalism and
its influence on US foreign policy shows that it should not be dismissed as
‘mere rhetoric’. In fact, it should be acknowledged as an important and
influential idea that contributes to the framework of discourse in which
‘policymakers deal with specific issues and in which the attentive public
understands those issues’.21 This is not to say that the belief in exceptional-
ism is the root cause of all foreign policy. Although the analysis in this book
reveals the prevalence of the belief in foreign policy discourse, it should
be remembered that at every turn policy was shaped and driven by more
tangible determinants such as the preservation of national security, the
demand for overseas markets, or, indeed, the personal ambitions of policy-
makers. As Anders Stephanson makes clear in his study of manifest destiny,
the destinarian discourse he identifies did not ‘cause’ policy as such. It was,
however, ‘of signal importance in the way the United States came to under-
stand itself in the world and still does’. The same is true about the broader
idea of American exceptionalism – it is not ‘a mere rationalization’ but often
appears ‘in the guise of common sense’.22 The argument in this book is that
throughout American history, exceptionalist beliefs have framed the dis-
course of foreign policy making by providing the underlying assumptions
and terms of reference for foreign policy debate and conduct. While others
have acknowledged the importance of exceptionalist beliefs, no previous
work has focused specifically on the post-Vietnam era and the legacy of that
conflict for the belief in exceptionalism and the course of US foreign policy.

National identity and the belief in American exceptionalism

Scholars disagree over whether exceptionalism amounts to an ideology

as such. Hunt contends that the belief in ‘national greatness’ is a central
 American Exceptionalism: An Introduction 7

element of the ideology behind US foreign policy. Alternatively, it has been

suggested that exceptionalism amounts to a ‘para-ideology’ because its
influence underwrites much of US foreign policy but it does not have the
coherence of a traditional ideology. It has also been argued that American
democratic liberalism is the ideology underpinning US foreign policy
but that a belief in American exceptionalism is a central element of that
ideology.23
It was Richard Hofstadter who observed, ‘It has been our fate as a nation
not to have ideologies but to be one.’ In the US, as in other countries,
‘ideology helps to form the basis of the national identity, through which
individuals find motivation to translate ideas into action’.24 American
nationalism is not built on the usual elements of nationhood such as shared
language, culture, common descent or historical territory, but on ‘an idea
which singled out the new nation among the nations of the earth’. This idea
is a ‘universal message’ that American values and principles will benefit the
whole of humankind.25 Being an American, or rather a US citizen, is not sim-
ply a birthright but the acceptance of a general set of principles and values
that Samuel Huntington has described as the American Creed. These core
values, he claims, are: liberty, equality, individualism, democracy, and the
rule of law under a constitution. To be an American is to make an ideologi-
cal commitment to these political values.26 It is perhaps one of the unique
aspects of American society that any person from anywhere in the world can
be accepted as a true American if they will adhere to these values. Abraham
Lincoln once declared that no matter where immigrants may have come
from in Europe, by accepting the ‘moral sentiment’ of the Declaration of
Independence they were as much Americans ‘as though they were blood of
the blood and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration’.27
Challenging or rejecting these core values can leave a person branded
‘un-American’, another concept peculiar to the United States – there is no
such thing, for instance, as an ‘un-British’ or ‘un-German’ belief or person.28
In times of trial in American history even people whose families have been
American for several generations have had to face loyalty tests, most
famously during the Truman administration and the McCarthy ‘witch-hunt’
of the 1950s, or to similarly proclaim their unwavering dedication to
American values and principles. Those who would not were ostracized
or even imprisoned. Various rituals are built into everyday American life to
reinforce each citizen’s belief in those values and principles. These rituals are
examples of what Eric Hobsbawm calls ‘invented tradition’ which provides
the foundations of national identity and nationalism. Hobsbawm suggests
that ‘Americanism’ is ‘notably ill-defined’ but that the practices that
symbolize it are ‘virtually compulsory’. These rituals were ‘invented’ as
‘emotionally and symbolically charged signs of club membership’.29 The
Pledge of Allegiance; the Fourth of July; Thanksgiving; the ‘Star Spangled
Banner’ as both flag and anthem; the Declaration of Independence and the
8 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Constitution, both reverentially displayed at the temple-like National

Archives building; the national monuments in Washington, DC; the Statue
of Liberty in New York; the carved faces of presidents on Mount Rushmore –
these are all invented traditions that symbolize American national identity
and amount to what Robert Bellah has called a ‘civil religion’.30 They fulfil
each of the three purposes of invented tradition: they help to establish and
symbolize social cohesion; they help to legitimize the relationship between
citizens and government; and they inculcate certain ‘beliefs, value systems
and conventions of behaviour’.31
The conception of the nation as invented or imagined is particularly
useful in understanding the construction of American national identity.
Without the same sense of shared heritage, religion, ethnicity, culture and
history that are important in the formation of many other nations,
‘Americans had to invent what Europeans inherited: a sense of solidarity, a
repertoire of national symbols, a quickening of political passions.’32 Nations
embody shared memories, myths, symbols and values. Newly formed nation
states, especially those without a common ethnic root like the US, must
‘forge a cultural unity and identity of myth, symbol, value, and memory
that can match that of nations built on pre-existing ethnic ties if they are to
survive and flourish as nations’.33
For Americans, in the ‘absence of a shared past, the search for identity pro-
duced narratives of difference and exception’.34 As Roger Whitcomb argues:
‘A national myth of separateness, exclusivity, and superiority was integral to
America’s national formation and development.’35 The belief in the excep-
tionalism of the United States is, therefore, a ‘core theme of American
nationalism’ that has been expressed most commonly in the ‘long-standing
tradition of thought about American chosenness, mission, and destiny’.36
It has been central to the formation of American national identity, and
thus can be seen to have provided a significant part of the cultural and
intellectual framework within which foreign policy has been made.

The belief in American exceptionalism

Exceptionalism is a fluid and adaptive idea that can be interpreted in

different ways. Therefore it is necessary not only to identify its major
assumptions but also to consider its two main strands – the exemplary and
the missionary – and the outcomes these different views have for foreign
policy.37 Three main elements of exceptionalist belief have remained rela-
tively consistent throughout American history: that the US is a special
nation with a special destiny; that it is separate and different from the rest
of the world, especially Europe; and that it will avoid the laws of history that
determine the rise and fall of all great nations.
First and foremost is the belief that the United States is a special nation
with a special role to play in human history. Throughout American history
 American Exceptionalism: An Introduction 9

there have been repeated claims that the US is the ‘promised land’ and its
citizens are the ‘chosen people’, divinely ordained to lead the world to
betterment.38 This notion goes back to the very beginnings of colonization.
Most famously, in 1630, Puritan settler John Winthrop pronounced that the
Massachusetts Bay colonists ‘must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon
a Hill, the eies of all people are upon us’.39 Winthrop’s words were circulated
in manuscript form and have since become one of the main formative texts
of American self-identity and meaning. Inherent in this notion of the city
on a hill is the belief that the American colonists, and those who have
followed them, were uniquely blessed by God to pursue His work on Earth
and to establish a society that would provide this beacon for the betterment
of all humankind. Americans have been charged by God with the task
of reforming themselves and the world – they are a redeemer nation. As
George Washington declared: ‘Every step by which [the United States] have
advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been dis-
tinguished by some token of providential agency.’40 This and other such
public expressions helped forge a permanent place in the American beliefs
system for the idea that the US was chosen by God to assume its special place
in history. In a country where religious belief remains higher than in any
other major industrialized nation, such a claim continues to have a peculiar
resonance.41 At the same time, though, the chosen people are exposed to
temptation and corruption, most often from abroad or from subversives
within. Americans are thus constantly being tested and must undergo con-
tinual self-inspection.42 When they do seem to fail or commit wrongdoing,
it is because the forces of evil are working against them. But even in such
circumstances, the belief in exceptionalism enables Americans to maintain
their purity because their intentions are good and they will strive on with
their national experiment.
The second main element of exceptionalist belief is the New World’s
separateness and difference from the Old World of Europe. In Europe,
Americans believed, self-interested monarchies exploited the majority of
their own people, then sought imperial expansion abroad to increase their
treasures, boost their reputations, and increase their power relative to other
monarchies. The political systems were invariably corrupt, and pandered to
the needs and desires of the traditional elites, leaving little or no means for
commoners to improve their lot in life. Many early Americans hoped they
could escape such ills by establishing new forms of society on the American
continent. Most seventeenth and eighteenth century settlers, particularly in
New England, brought with them novel ideas and convictions about how a
society should organize itself. In contrast to Europe, the New World would
be committed to freedom, morality, and the betterment of humankind. The
Americans were in a unique position. As Thomas Paine suggested in his
influential revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense (1776): ‘We have it in
our power to begin the world over again.’43 The American continent was
10 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

regarded as a virgin land upon which the peoples of the world could gather
to create a New World based upon ideas, values and principles untried
elsewhere. As Crèvecoeur observed in his influential Letters from an American
Farmer (1782): ‘The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles;
he must therefore entertain new ideas and form new opinions.’ 44 In 1787,
the US Constitution was written as the basis for an ambitious experiment in
governing a modern civilization. Although they were relatively pessimistic
about its chances, the greatest hope of the Founding Fathers was that the
constitutional framework would allow the US to develop over time into the
most perfect republican society in the world.45
This leads to the third main element of exceptionalism which is the belief
that the United States, unlike other great nations, is not destined to rise and
fall. If their political experiment was a success, the Founding Fathers hoped
to escape the ‘laws of history’ which eventually cause the decay and down-
fall of all great nations and empires. The geographic isolation of the
American continent from Europe seemed to offer hope that the US could
protect itself from falling prey to the degenerative nature of the Old World.
As Washington declared: ‘Our detached and distant situation invites and
enables us to pursue a different course.’ 46 The United States, Thomas
Jefferson observed, was ‘Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from
the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to
endure the degradations of others.’ 47 Such leaders did not suggest that
Americans would be immune from temptation but they did indicate that,
with eternal vigilance, the US could be prevented from succumbing to the
same vices that had destroyed other great nations. Such attitudes have led
Americans to believe their nation is the leader of progress in the world.
Practically everything that the US does as a nation is regarded as pushing
forward the boundaries of human achievement, be it in politics, industry,
technology, sports, the arts, even warfare. Certainly there are some mistakes
made, but they are few, they are learned from, and they are improved upon
at the next attempt. No matter how many setbacks they may face along the
way, Americans believe they will continue forward resolutely, striving for
progress toward forming an ever more perfect union. Americans think of
themselves as exceptional, then, not necessarily in what they are but in
what they could be. For this reason the sense of exceptionalism can never
die, no matter how unexceptional the nation may appear in reality.
Exceptionalism persists because of what it promises just as much as, if not
more than, what it delivers. It is tied to what it means to be an American:
to have faith in the values and principles that caused the nation to be
founded and to continue to exist.
Advocates of both the exemplary and the missionary strands of excep-
tionalist belief tend to share each of these assumptions. Where they differ is
in how they believe these assumptions should translate into American
actions with regard to the rest of the world. All exceptionalists believe very
 American Exceptionalism: An Introduction 11

strongly in the basic benevolence of their actions towards other nations.

National motives are not perceived as being driven solely by the desire for
material gain but also by a dedication to principles of liberty and freedom
for all humankind. A corollary of this belief is that it is the duty of the
United States to help the rest of the world follow the example of the chosen
people.
Followers of the exemplary strand of American exceptionalism have
mostly advocated that the US remain aloof from the world’s troubles and
lead by example. Americans should strive to perfect their own society as
much as possible without interfering in the affairs of others. To intervene
abroad, the exemplarists argue, not only would probably harm the other
nation but also would most likely undermine the American experiment at
home. Far better, then, that the US should have peaceful trade relations
abroad but concentrate on building a model society for others to copy rather
than forcing the benefits of American life on them.
Adherents to the missionary strand of American exceptionalism, who
advocate US expansion or intervention in the affairs of other nations,
nevertheless believe that, unlike other nations, the United States is inca-
pable of seeking dominion over other peoples in its self-interest. As John
Quincy Adams proclaimed in 1821, the US ‘goes not abroad, in search of
monsters to destroy’. Adams insisted that America’s ‘glory is not dominion,
but liberty’ and that: ‘She is the well-wisher to the freedom and indepen-
dence of all.’ 48 Washington will, therefore, project its power abroad not to
subjugate other nations but to help them become like the United States, to
become free and democratic. These Americans seem to believe that inside
every foreigner there is the potential, even the desire, to be an American.
After all, to be an American is not a birthright but the willingness to believe
in a certain set of political and social principles and values. The missionary
strand of American exceptionalism suggests that all the people of the world
want to be like Americans, whether they realize it or not. This assumption
has led Americans to find it very difficult to understand that other peoples
may place different values on things and have different perceptions from
Americans of how the world should be. In fact, both forms of exceptional-
ism hold, rather paradoxically, that the unique American political values
and principles are actually universal in their nature. The US is regarded as
the embodiment of universal values based on the rights of all humankind –
freedom, equality, and justice for all. It is the exceptional champion of
these rights but they are shared by all humans, whether they are Americans
or not.49

Exceptionalism and the history of US foreign policy

In the early years of the republic it was initially the exemplar strand of
exceptionalism that dominated US foreign policy. The United States would
12 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

provide a model of freedom, liberty, and democracy from which the rest of
the world could learn. Both Washington and Jefferson famously called upon
Americans to actively seek to preserve their nation’s unique position of
aloofness from the world’s ills. In his Farewell Address, Washington
declared:

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extend-
ing our commercial relations to have with them as little political connec-
tion as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them
be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop … It is our true policy
to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign
world.50

Jefferson reinforced these sentiments, recommending that the US should

seek ‘peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling
alliances with none’.51 Such pronouncements laid the foundations for a
foreign policy characterized by high levels of unilateralism and so-called
isolationism.
As the republic became stronger and more successful, however, the
dominant notion of the US as a separate, aloof nation was challenged by a
growing sense of ‘sacred mission’ and ‘sanctified destiny’.52 By the 1840s,
with the US expanding westward, the missionary strand of exceptionalism
was in the ascendancy in the form of ‘Manifest Destiny’. Albert Weinberg
defines manifest destiny as ‘in essence the doctrine that one nation has a
preeminent social worth, a distinctively lofty mission, and consequently,
unique rights in the application of moral principles’. The idea soon became
‘a firmly established article of the national creed’.53 Territorial expansion
was justified by Americans because they believed theirs was a special nation
chosen by Providence to spread its virtues far and wide.
At the end of the nineteenth century, however, the two main strands of
exceptionalism came into direct conflict with one another as Americans
debated the future direction of US foreign policy. Following the highly pop-
ular Spanish–American War of 1898, a ‘Great Debate’ erupted between
expansionists who sought the annexation of former Spanish colonies and
‘anti-imperialists’ who opposed such a policy. The nature of the debate is
illustrative of how, even when there are disagreements over the course
of foreign policy, advocates on all sides tend to frame their arguments
around the notion that there is something exceptional about the United
States. They may differ in their perceptions of the exact nature of American
exceptionalism but its basic sentiment provides the framework for their
discussions.
The commercial and strategic advantages of annexation provided
the rationale for most expansionists. Yet many of them also expressed their
conviction that annexation was a morally acceptable policy because it was
 American Exceptionalism: An Introduction 13

the duty of the United States, as God’s emissary, to extend freedom and
democracy whenever possible.54 Expansionists, drawing upon the tradition
of manifest destiny, were strong believers in and advocates of the mission-
ary strand of American exceptionalism. The anti-imperialists, meanwhile,
had a different view of the special American role in the world that reflected
the exemplar strand of exceptionalism. They were more concerned that,
having ousted the Spanish, the US should leave the liberated states to deter-
mine their own destinies, in keeping with the American dedication to the
idea that governments derive their power from the consent of the governed.
As Charles Norton Eliot made clear, he and his fellow anti-imperialists
believed the transformation of the US into an imperial power ‘sounded the
close of the America exceptionally blessed among the nations’.55 Although
their individual opposition varied, the essence of the anti-imperialists’
protest was that they feared the US was acting in a manner inconsistent with
the principles laid down by the Founding Fathers. Thus both imperialists
and anti-imperialists believed they were arguing for conduct consistent with
the idea that the US was an exceptional nation with a special role to play in
human history. They both agreed that the US was different from – indeed,
better than – other nations; where they disagreed was on the precise nature
of that exceptionalism.
The question of which strand of exceptionalism would dominate US for-
eign policy was gradually resolved in the first half of the twentieth century,
but not without further debate. Woodrow Wilson, for example, seemed to
personify the belief in American exceptionalism. He believed firmly that the
‘force of America is the force of moral principle’, that the ‘idea of America
is to serve humanity’, and that while other nations used force ‘for the
oppression of mankind and their own aggrandizement’, the US would only
use force ‘for the elevation of the spirit of the human race’.56 Although he
frequently employed force abroad it was in what he considered efforts to
help other peoples become more democratic and orderly. He best expressed
his attitude in 1914: ‘They say the Mexicans are not fitted for self-govern-
ment and to this I reply that, when properly directed, there is no people not
fitted for self-government.’57 Wilson was a clear advocate of the missionary
strand of American exceptionalism.
Wilson is best remembered for taking the US into the First World War to
‘make the world safe for democracy’ and for his efforts to build a peaceful
post-war international order based on American values and principles.
The US Senate, however, rejected Wilsonian idealism and turned back to the
tradition of non-entanglement with the affairs of Europe. In the interwar
years, the so-called ‘isolationists’ and ‘internationalists’ again played out the
debate between the exemplary and missionary strands of exceptionalism.
The isolationists believed the US should remain aloof from the petty
squabbles and adversarial alliances common in Europe while maintaining
its traditional interests within its own hemisphere. The internationalists, on
14 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

the other hand, believed the US had a duty to intervene in world affairs. The
latter finally won the argument after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on
December 7, 1941.
The Second World War established the US as a fully engaged world power.
Although security threats, strategic imperatives and economic interests
drove much of his policy, Franklin D. Roosevelt still made clear that a
central US war objective was to establish and secure ‘freedom of speech, free-
dom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear everywhere in
the world’.58 The ‘Four Freedoms’ and their contrast to fascism rooted the
war effort in one of the central ideas of American political culture and
remained dominant in public discourse and official rhetoric throughout the
war.59 To win the war would not be enough. An allied victory must lead to
lasting peace and security in the world based upon universal values and
principles traditionally espoused by Americans. To lead such a future was an
American responsibility and duty that would promote not only American
interests but also those of all humankind.
As this brief summary indicates, the belief in American exceptionalism has
long had an influence on US foreign policy, its presentation and conduct.60
It has not had a set content but has varied over time, with the exemplary
and missionary strands often framing debate over the direction of policy.
At the end of the Second World War and during the formative years of the
Cold War, as the next chapter shows, exceptionalist beliefs continued
to underpin US foreign policy. The events of that period, however, would
cause Americans to question whether American exceptionalism had come to
an end.

Challenges to exceptionalism

Certainly not all Americans believe wholeheartedly in all aspects of American

exceptionalism. Many are all too aware that major problems exist within
their society, many of which they may never adequately solve. Scholars, offi-
cials and the public alike debate the apparent decline of American power in
the world, the corruption and scandal rife within the political system, and
the gradual breakdown of civil society under the strains of crime, violence,
drugs, poverty, divorce and other social ills. Many Americans acknowledge
that in an increasingly interdependent world the US cannot claim dominion
in international affairs and that when they do intervene abroad, Americans
very often undermine the very principles they claim to be defending.
Americans understand that their nation is not without its problems. Yet
equally, public opinion polls show that Americans usually retain a great faith
and confidence in their system’s ability to ultimately overcome any chal-
lenge. This faith does not diminish the public anxiety that is felt each time
a substantial challenge arises, but Americans are assured that their existing
system, based on a relatively adaptable constitution and traditional values
 American Exceptionalism: An Introduction 15

and principles, has proved itself time and again to be extremely resilient. For
example, despite the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton in
1998–99 and the attendant disruption to the political process, a significant
majority of Americans maintained their confidence in the ability of the
Federal Government to handle effectively both domestic and international
problems.61 The debacle over the result of the 2000 presidential election also
divided the country and raised serious questions about the efficacy of the
electoral system, yet once the Supreme Court had settled the issue a vast
majority of Americans accepted the legitimacy of George W. Bush as their
president.62
Questions of race, ethnicity, gender, class and even regionalism also raise
problems for the kind of conclusions that Huntington, Lipset and others
have drawn about American exceptionalism. Many black Americans, for
example, feel less than accepted by the dominant culture regardless of
whether they adhere to traditional American values and principles. Fears
that mass immigrations are somehow diluting the American values system
are also nothing new. Each periodic wave of new immigrants has raised
similar anxiety within the dominant culture. Although varying degrees of
discrimination and inequality may persist, successive immigrant groups
have found that conducting their lives in ways consistent with traditional
American values and principles can facilitate a relatively rapid assimilation
into the dominant culture.63 Although such questions and challenges to the
mainstream are obviously important, the focus of this book is upon core
beliefs to which immigrants have traditionally been expected to adapt.
It is also important to note that many of the voices from the American
past that provide Americans with the root references for their assumptions
about the special nature of their country are actually taken out of context
and given new meanings or greater importance than was originally
intended. Selective quotation over the years has meant, for instance, that
much of John Winthrop’s original message has become lost. In his ‘city on
a hill’ sermon, Winthrop was warning his fellow colonists that God would
only grant them his favour if they conducted themselves according to his
principles. Winthrop’s use of the city on a hill was not a proclamation of the
superiority of the colony but a warning that the whole world would know
if the settlers did not live strictly in accordance with God’s laws. If they
failed in this commitment they would ‘shame the faces of many of gods
worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses upon
us’.64 The responsibility granted to the Americans was, therefore, very great.
Winthrop’s warning, though, became less and less heeded as the belief in
the nation’s special destiny grew.
Alexis de Tocqueville is remembered for his observations of the
‘exceptional’ qualities of US citizens. However, he also made many less-
often quoted criticisms of the Americans and their ways. He was particularly
critical of American national pride which he believed ‘descends to every
16 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

childishness of personal vanity’ whenever an observer makes a negative

appraisal of some aspect of American society. The majority of Americans
lived ‘in a state of perpetual self-adoration’ he contended. Tocqueville was
quite damning of the inability of most Americans to accept criticisms. It was
their very sense of exceptionalism that Tocqueville found so objectionable:
‘they have an immensely high opinion of themselves and are not far from
believing that they form a species apart from the rest of the human race.’
Yet despite Tocqueville’s extensive criticisms of Americans’ ‘grandiose
opinion of their country and themselves’, most Americans tend to focus on
the positive elements of his observations of American society, politics and
morals and his affirmations of their special role in the world.65
Cultural myths and beliefs often grow from interpretive or selective
readings of reality. It should come as no surprise that elements of famous
American speeches, documents and works of literature have been taken out
of context and given deeper cultural meaning as elements of the belief in
American exceptionalism. As David Ryan observes: ‘Cultural stories stabilise
and organise society around acceptable ideas. … [M]yths integrate the
national experience and serve as vehicles to overcome internal contradic-
tions.’66 Such ideas, whether grounded in reality or not, have framed public
and official discourse over US foreign policy making throughout the history
of the republic.
Americans are also not unique in their belief that theirs is an exceptional
nation. Many, if not all, countries have shared such national vanity at some
time or another in their histories. A belief in the exceptionalism of France,
for example, accompanied French colonialism in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries.67 Similarly, the British Empire was justified by a belief
in the superiority of the English and the God-given right of the Crown to
bring civilization to the rest of the world.68 Adolf Hitler justified his expan-
sionist policies in terms of nationalism and a belief in the exceptional nature
of the German people.69 Americans are clearly not alone in holding excep-
tionalist beliefs. Neither are they unique in pursuing foreign policies that are
informed by those cultural beliefs. In all countries, policy making is based
to a certain extent on assumptions formed from unique elements of national
culture.
The fact that other nations have their own forms of exceptionalism does
not diminish the effects that the belief in American exceptionalism has on
policy making in the United States. As the US remains the most powerful
nation in the world it is important to recognize the consequences that the
belief in American exceptionalism have on US foreign policy making.
Political, economic, and strategic interests are the major determinants of US
foreign policy. But no matter what the root reasons for a foreign policy deci-
sion, that policy is usually couched in terms consistent with American
exceptionalism. Use of this rhetoric assures substantial public support
for policy and has proved very effective throughout US history. It is not,
 American Exceptionalism: An Introduction 17

however, simply a manipulative tool employed by policy makers but

provides the framework for the discussion of foreign policy, its presentation
by officials, and its realization. The use of exceptionalist rhetoric is often
regarded by foreign observers with either contempt or confusion, but if we
are to truly understand the ways in which US foreign policy is conducted it
is essential that we take seriously the intellectual and cultural framework in
which it is made. If this can be done then non-Americans may find it easier
to understand why the United States acts in the ways it does internationally.
At the same time, such a comprehension may also allow Americans a greater
appreciation of why other peoples sometimes react negatively to US actions
or rhetoric.

The structure of the book

The belief in American exceptionalism has been maintained throughout US

history even though it has frequently been contradicted by the realities of
the American experience. On various occasions, the belief has been chal-
lenged by the course of events, yet it is very resilient and has survived and
flourished. The focus of this book is on the period following the most
recent major challenge to the public’s faith in the idea of American excep-
tionalism. The Vietnam War, coupled with the Watergate scandal, shook
Americans’ traditional confidence in their nation’s purpose and the promise
of an ever better future. Hence, analysts of American society such as Bell
declared the end of American exceptionalism. It will be argued that the
belief in American exceptionalism in fact survived the crisis of confidence
of the 1970s and continues to be believed by public and officials alike. The
belief continues to provide the framework within which US domestic and
foreign policy is framed, conducted and presented to the public. It also tends
to provide the framework for much of the dissent against that policy.
Presidential rhetoric is a particularly useful and important source for
understanding the prevalence of exceptionalist belief in the United States.
The president is the only nationally elected political figure and is often
regarded as an embodiment of the nation and the ‘voice of the people’.
Woodrow Wilson once characterized the president as ‘the spokesman for the
real sentiment and purpose of the country’.70 As David Ryan suggests:
The primary reason for according value to presidential speeches is that
they capture or shape the mood of the nation through prominent annual
addresses, and they certainly speak to the constructions of US identity. In
foreign policy these words, coupled with the sacred documents of the
nation, provide meaning and identity in an otherwise bewildering
world.71
In order to identify the main ideas that have informed US foreign policy
making, Michael Hunt agrees that ‘one need only look at [the foreign
18 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

policy] elite’s private musings and, more important, the public rhetoric by
which they have justified their actions and communicated their opinions to
one another and to the nation’. Obviously such material should not always
be taken at face value as public rhetoric is often cleverly constructed in order
to manipulate the audience or even hide the speaker’s true intentions.
Hunt contends, however, that such scepticism should not prevent us from
gleaning much that is useful from public expressions of policy:

Public rhetoric is not simply a screen, tool, or ornament. It is also,

perhaps even primarily, a form of communication, rich in symbols
and mythology and closely constrained by certain rules. To be effective,
public rhetoric must draw on values and concerns widely shared and
easily understood by its audience. A rhetoric that ignores or eschews the
language of common discourse on the central problems of the day closes
itself off as a matter of course from any sizable audience, limiting its
own influence. If a rhetoric fails to reflect the speaker’s genuine views on
fundamental issues, it runs the risk over time of creating false public
expectations and lays the basis for politically dangerous misunderstand-
ing. If it indulges in blatant inconsistency, it eventually pays the price of
diminished force and credibility.72

Public rhetoric is only worthless or misleading to those seeking to under-

stand the cultural underpinnings of policy, according to Hunt, when these
rules are violated or the audience is left unconvinced. The analysis in this
book, therefore, is based largely on the public expressions of US presidents
and other public officials. When possible, public pronouncements have
been compared with private statements in order to verify that public offi-
cials are not simply manipulating the public but that they generally share
in the belief in American exceptionalism.
The main focus of this book is on the post-Vietnam era. It is important,
however, to show how entrenched exceptionalist beliefs were before the US
experienced defeat in Vietnam. Chapter 2, therefore, looks briefly at excep-
tionalist beliefs in the early years of the Cold War and then explains why
the American experience of the Vietnam War appeared to shatter the belief
in American exceptionalism. The remaining chapters focus respectively on
the Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations. The analysis
shows how each president, in his own way, attempted to fully revive public
confidence in the belief in American exceptionalism. The degree to which
each president both utilized and believed the rhetoric of exceptionalism is
explored. The main concern is to show the extent to which the belief
in exceptionalism affected foreign policy. Particular attention is given to
the use of force, as exercising the will and resolve to employ the military is
a way for presidents to demonstrate that American power remains strong.
The appropriate application of force is also a way for administrations to
 American Exceptionalism: An Introduction 19

ensure their foreign policy is at least perceived as being consistent with the
assumptions of exceptionalist belief. Each president’s success at pursuing
a foreign policy consistent with traditional beliefs and at raising public
confidence in exceptionalism is assessed. The analysis focuses not only on
the legacy of the Vietnam War regarding the belief in exceptionalism, but
also on the conduct of foreign policy.
The concluding chapter examines how significant the belief in American
exceptionalism has been in the making of US foreign policy. It is argued that
American exceptionalism will continue to provide the framework for foreign
policy making and debate, and that to fully understand what Americans
mean by the things they say about the world and to anticipate how they
might react to world events we must continue to consider the influence of
the belief in American exceptionalism. It is also argued that the conduct
of US foreign policy remains deeply affected by the so-called ‘Vietnam
syndrome’. The links between this syndrome and the belief in American
exceptionalism are explored.
2
The End of American
Exceptionalism? The Cold War and
Vietnam

In 1941, Henry Luce published an influential essay in Life magazine in

which he declared that the twentieth century should be considered ‘the
American Century’. Luce portrayed a vision of America that continued
the long tradition of regarding the United States as an exceptional nation
with a special destiny. He argued that the US must ‘accept wholeheartedly
our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation in the
world and in consequence to exert upon the world the full impact of our
influence’. He insisted that ‘our vision of America as a world power’ must
include ‘a passionate devotion to great American ideals’ such as freedom,
equality of opportunity, self-reliance and independence, but also coopera-
tion. The time had come for the US to cast aside isolationism and become
‘the powerhouse from which these ideals spread throughout the world and
do their mysterious work of lifting the life of mankind from the level of the
beasts to what the Psalmist called a little lower than angels’.1
Luce’s vision seemed confirmed by the American experience in the Second
World War. Although it was the longest and bloodiest war Americans had
fought overseas, it was widely regarded as a resounding success for the US.
Despite questions of guilt concerning the Holocaust and the use of the
atomic bomb, the war has acted as affirmation for the American belief that
the US is the leader and protector of all humankind and that it represents
a force of good against the evil in the world. That the US was fulfilling its
special destiny seemed confirmed by the nation’s position of strength at the
end of the conflict. While all the other major combatants had suffered mas-
sive devastation, the US emerged from the war relatively unscathed
with its industry booming, its fighting forces the largest and best equipped
in the world, and with a monopoly on the ultimate new weapon, the
atomic bomb.
The American experience in the Second World War had, therefore,
strongly reinforced the belief in American exceptionalism. Over the next

20
 The End of American Exceptionalism? 21

thirty years, however, events were to unfold that would seriously undermine
American faith in their special destiny and special place in the world.
The analysis in this chapter will first show how the belief in American
exceptionalism provided the basis for much of the discourse of Cold War
American foreign policy. The main focus, however, will be on how US
conduct in the Vietnam War and the resultant defeat caused Americans to
question whether they had witnessed the end of American exceptionalism.

The leader of the free world

With its role as an international superpower firmly established, the US

seemed finally to have overcome its insular approach to the rest of the
world. In October 1945, 71 per cent of Americans responding to a Gallup
poll believed it was ‘best for the future of this country if we take an active
role in world affairs’.2 The new internationalism that characterized the
post-war period also seemed to confirm to Americans that the US was first
among nations. Americans were now more than willing to accept their role
in the community of nations but only as the leading light. As President
Dwight D. Eisenhower declared in 1953: ‘destiny has laid upon our country
the responsibility of the free world’s leadership.’3 Rather than retreat to the
role of exemplar, the US would participate in world affairs to an extent far
greater than ever before but, in accordance with the belief in its own special
destiny, do so only on its own terms.
The defining feature of the post-war world was the ideological conflict
between East and West. Soviet communism and its containment soon
became the focus of US foreign policy as over forty years of Cold War began.
Although strategic, economic and political interests were among its central
determinants, US Cold War policy and the broad public consensus that sup-
ported it were underpinned by an ideology of what John Fousek identifies
as ‘American nationalist globalism’ that was rooted in the missionary strand
of the belief in American exceptionalism.4 Anders Stephanson agrees that
the ‘operative framework’ of Cold War policy was ‘the story of American
exceptionalism, with its missionary implications’.5 Successive presidents
and other public officials and opinion leaders persistently portrayed the
Cold War in stark, Manichean terms as a battle between good and evil. The
US was ‘the leader of the free world’ that must prevail and save humanity
from the ‘evils’ of communism.
President Harry S Truman has been described as ‘a staunch exponent of
American exceptionalism’ who frequently referred to the US as ‘the greatest
nation that the sun ever shone upon’.6 For Truman, victory in the Second
World War demonstrated American greatness, but it also placed on the US
the responsibility of ensuring peace and freedom in the post-war world.
Truman provided the guiding principles for American Cold War policy
in what became known as the Truman Doctrine. It was the duty of the
22 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

United States, he contended, to do whatever was necessary to protect the

rights of free, democratic nations around the world. This task was critical,
he asserted, if the values and principles that Americans held so dear were to
survive the challenge of communism and truly enable the world to be led
out of darkness: ‘The free peoples of the world look to us for support in
maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger
the peace of the world – and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our own
Nation.’ Truman believed it was no longer enough for the US merely to pro-
vide an example for the rest of the world to follow. He argued that the US,
as the chosen nation, must take up the gauntlet and defend the rights of free
peoples everywhere against what he regarded as totalitarian aggression and
subversion.7 The Cold War ethos was, then, firmly grounded in the mis-
sionary strand of American exceptionalism. Each of Truman’s successors also
utilized the language and ideas of American exceptionalism to reinforce the
nature of the battle with communism.
It was not only in presidential rhetoric that the Cold War was defined and
discussed in terms of ideas about American destiny, duty and exceptional-
ism. For example, George Kennan, the original architect of the containment
policy, ended his influential article in Foreign Affairs (July 1947) by arguing
that: ‘The issue of Soviet-American relations is in essence a test of the
over-all worth of the United States as a nation among nations. To avoid
destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best tradi-
tions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.’ He claimed
that the ‘thoughtful observer’ would not object to the Cold War but would

rather experience a certain gratitude to a Providence which, by providing

the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their
entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves
together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leader-
ship that history plainly intended them to bear.8

Kennan, who was often critical of moralism in foreign policy, had nonethe-
less used the traditional language of exceptionalism to advocate his strategy
for containing Soviet communism.
During the Cold War, the private communications of policy makers and
even secret national security documents were frequently ‘couched in the
stark and sweeping terms usually reserved for crusades’.9 For example, the
authors of the secret National Security Council Paper No. 68 (NSC 68),
the document that defined the course of US Cold War policy in 1950, made
clear that: ‘Our position as the center of power in the free world places a
heavy responsibility upon the United States for leadership.’ They described
the Cold War as ‘a basic conflict between the idea of freedom under a gov-
ernment of laws, and the idea of slavery under the grim oligarchy of the
Kremlin’. It was ‘imperative’ that the forces of ‘freedom’ prevail, and the US
 The End of American Exceptionalism? 23

must, therefore, build up its political, economic, and military strength.

NSC 68 further emphasized, however, that US strength also lay ‘in the way
in which we affirm our values in the conduct of our national life’. The doc-
ument’s authors argued: ‘It is only by practical affirmation, abroad as well
as at home, of our essential values, that we can preserve our own integrity,
in which lies the real frustration of the Kremlin design.’ The US must accept
‘the responsibility of world leadership’ so as to ‘bring about order and jus-
tice by means consistent with the principles of freedom and democracy’.10
NSC 68 was designed only for the eyes of other policy makers yet it drew
upon exceptionalist ideas and was built around the idea of free world lead-
ership that ‘became the controlling metaphor in US foreign-policy discourse
throughout the postwar period’.11
Not all Americans, however, accepted uncritically the tenets of the Cold
War consensus. African Americans in particular focused on the apparent
contradiction of the US demanding freedom and democracy throughout the
world when such rights were still widely denied to large numbers of its own
citizens at home. The civil rights movement used claims of America’s lead-
ership of the free world to argue that racial equality must also be achieved
in the US. Such demands contributed to the many advancements made in
race relations during the 1950s and 1960s.12 On the whole, though, raising
objections to the Cold War consensus was difficult, even dangerous, partic-
ularly during the earlier years of the Cold War, not least because foreign
policy dissent was frequently equated with ‘fundamental disloyalty to the
nation and its values’.13
Many Cold War policies reflected exceptionalist assumptions about the
American role in the world. The Marshall Plan (1947) for the economic
reconstruction of post-war Western Europe was designed to revive European
economies using not only American money but also practices and prin-
ciples. The US, in the tradition of the redeemer nation, was fulfilling its
responsibility of leadership through a programme that provided benefits not
only for itself but also for the peoples of war-torn Europe. Similarly, mod-
ernization theory provided the rationale for much US Cold War policy
towards the developing world, particularly during the Kennedy adminis-
tration. Modernization theorists believed that all societies pass through
sequential stages of progress from ‘traditional’ to ‘modern’ and that because
the West, and in particular the US, was the ‘common endpoint’ to which all
peoples must irresistibly move, Americans could help underdeveloped coun-
tries along the way from being stagnant, traditional societies to active, mod-
ern ones. American ‘nation building’ efforts throughout the Third World,
therefore, promoted the ‘continuing power of the widespread belief that
America was both called to and capable of remaking the rest of the world’.14
The rhetoric of exceptionalism was also used to justify major uses of force
during the Cold War, even when clear strategic and political justifications
could be found. The Truman administration perceived the North Korean
24 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

invasion of South Korea on June 24, 1950 as part of a global campaign of

Soviet expansion. To demonstrate the credibility of the Truman Doctrine
and to achieve the containment of communism, the administration con-
cluded that the US had no choice but to intervene.15 Yet Truman still
couched the intervention in terms consistent with the belief in American
exceptionalism. He emphasized the moral aspects of the crisis and insisted
that the US was acting for the good of the South Koreans rather than out of
pure self-interest: ‘It should be made perfectly clear that [our] action was
undertaken as a matter of basic moral principle.’ According to Truman, the
American objective in Korea was a benevolent one: ‘For ourselves, we seek
no territory or domination over others.’16 According to Truman, the US was
acting in accordance with its most deeply held principles that it had a duty
to protect wherever they might be threatened in the world.
The belief in American exceptionalism was reiterated most strongly and
influentially during the Cold War by President John F. Kennedy in his
Inaugural Address. Kennedy drew upon all the main elements of exception-
alism in a declaration of American intent towards the rest of the world. He
claimed: ‘the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are
still at issue around the globe – the belief that the rights of man come not
from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.’ Kennedy gave
a forceful assurance that the US would fulfil its duty to defend freedom not
only at home but all over the world: ‘Let every nation know, whether it
wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any
hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and suc-
cess of liberty.’ Echoing the sentiments of American leaders throughout US
history, Kennedy asserted that American actions would be divinely blessed:
‘here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.’ Finally, he evoked the
image of America as a city on a hill: ‘the energy, the faith, the devotion
which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve
it – and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.’17
Despite their expansionist history, Americans were unable to imagine that
their own actions could be anything but just and moral with regard to the
Cold War. In their own eyes, Americans carried out their policies towards
the Soviet Union not for purely self-interested strategic reasons, but for the
higher purpose of securing a better, safer future for all of mankind. In
October 1962, Kennedy emphasized these exceptionalist convictions as he
explained the course of action the US would follow in response to the Soviet
attempts to deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba:

The path we have chosen … is the one most consistent with our charac-
ter and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. …
Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right – not
peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this
hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world.18
 The End of American Exceptionalism? 25

The US was, according to Kennedy, acting in accordance with the highest of

American traditions and beliefs.
Perhaps the greatest crusade of the Cold War, and what would be its
greatest failure, was the Vietnam War. The US had supported the French
government’s attempts to reclaim its Indochinese colonies after the Second
World War and then provided major financial and military aid to South
Vietnam after the French had withdrawn in 1954. The major rationale
behind involvement in Vietnam was the policy of containment. Successive
US presidents gradually intensified American involvement in what they saw
increasingly as a test of American credibility. Lyndon Baines Johnson then
embarked on a major escalation of the war by deploying ground troops
in 1965. Although, as the following analysis will indicate, the Johnson
administration was duplicitous in its policies towards Vietnam, the presi-
dent explained escalation publicly in terms that were consistent with the
traditions of American exceptionalism. Like so many presidents before him,
Johnson insisted that the US had nothing but benign intentions: ‘We have
no territory there, nor do we seek any. … We want nothing for ourselves –
only that the people of South Viet-Nam be allowed to guide their own
country in their own way.’ This lack of desire for dominion over others was
such a strong American principle that ‘no nation need fear that we desire
their land, or to impose our will, or to dictate their institutions. But we will
always oppose the effort of one nation to conquer another nation’. The rea-
sons for this commitment were highly moral, Johnson declared, and very
much entwined in the belief that the US was brought into existence to serve
a special purpose in human history:

[O]ur generation has a dream. It is a very old dream. But we have the
power and now we have the opportunity to make that dream come true.
For centuries nations have struggled among each other. But we dream of
a world where disputes are settled by law and reason. And we will try to
make it so.

Johnson argued that: ‘Because we fight for values and we fight for princi-
ples, rather than territory or colonies, our patience and our determination
are unending.’19 Johnson was suggesting that the moral superiority of the
US purpose and the purity of its conduct would ensure ultimate victory.
As with all the major foreign policy actions in US history, the intervention
in Vietnam was justified publicly in terms consistent with the belief in
American exceptionalism.

The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was the longest foreign conflict in which the US had been
involved and the first in which it was defeated. It claimed over 58,000
26 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

American lives, left some 300,000 Americans wounded, and cost $155 billion.
Vietnamese losses were even higher, with estimates in excess of two million
dead. Cambodia and Laos suffered proportional losses. The region’s infra-
structure was left in ruins largely by an air war that saw a greater tonnage of
bombs dropped on the small countries of Indochina than had been dropped
by all aircraft in the Second World War.20
Despite the devastating effects on Vietnam, the fate of the Vietnamese
since the end of the war has been largely ignored by Americans, who have
tended to focus instead on what are considered to be the far-reaching effects
of the conflict on the United States. The war is invariably referred to by
Americans as a tragedy or a national trauma.21 Writing in the year after
the American withdrawal, Alexander Kendrick stated that the ‘war created
an open and suppurating wound which has not yet healed, and if it does,
it may leave a permanent scar on the American body politic’.22 The Vietnam
War had divided opinion in the country like no other event since the
Civil War. It contributed to the breakdown in the Cold War foreign policy
consensus. It diverted resources from domestic reform programmes and
caused high levels of inflation and national debt. It created an atmosphere
of distrust and even hostility between the public and the government.
Perhaps above all, though, the experience of Vietnam raised serious doubts
among Americans about the traditional belief that the United States is a
special nation with a special destiny. As Stanley Karnow observes, the names
on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC:

bear witness to the end of America’s absolute confidence in its moral

exclusivity, its military invincibility, its manifest destiny. They are the
price, paid in blood and sorrow, for America’s awakening to maturity, to
the recognition of its limitations. With the young men who died in
Vietnam died the dream of an ‘American century.’23

In 1975, when Daniel Bell declared ‘The End of American Exceptionalism’,

he agreed that the ‘American Century … foundered on the shoals of
Vietnam’. The chastening experience of the Vietnam War had made
Americans realize that they ‘are a nation like all other nations’.24 During the
war itself, Paul Potter, then president of Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS), argued that: ‘Most of us grew up thinking that the United States was
a strong but humble nation that … respected the integrity of other nations
and other systems; and that engaged in war only as a last resort.’ Cold
War foreign policy had, though, ‘done much to force many of us to rethink
attitudes that were deep and basic sentiments about our country’. He
concluded that the Vietnam War ‘has provided the razor, the terrifying
sharp cutting edge that has finally severed the last vestiges of illusions
that morality and democracy are the guiding principles of American foreign
policy’.25
 The End of American Exceptionalism? 27

What was it about the American experience in Vietnam that caused

Americans to question their national values and aims? The belief in
American exceptionalism had been challenged by other events in US history
prior to the Vietnam War. The debate over imperialism of the late nine-
teenth century, the years surrounding American involvement in the First
World War, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the increasingly unpop-
ular Korean War all gave Americans cause to question whether theirs
remained the chosen nation. Through each of these periods, however,
exceptionalist beliefs survived. Was there anything different between these
earlier events and Vietnam? What was it about Vietnam that led Bell and
other Americans to conclude that the United States was now ‘a nation like
all other nations’?
The main contention of those who argue that the belief in American
exceptionalism ended as a result of Vietnam is that American participation
in the war was immoral. The reality of defeat at the hands of Third World
opponents and the nature of the conduct of the war revealed to many
Americans that the US was just as fallible as any other nation. Indeed, the
central arguments of those who opposed the war were based on the belief
that ‘in Vietnam the United States was using its immense power in ways
inconsistent with the principles, the values, the ethical standards of the
American people’.26 Such arguments ranged from legal objections to accu-
sations of immoral behaviour on the part of soldiers and public officials. The
ultimate conclusion was that Americans had lost their right to claim their
country was exceptional among the nations of the world.
From the outset of American military involvement in Vietnam there were
questions about the legality of US actions. Unlike in the Korean War, the US
did not have the backing of the UN but fought largely on its own, receiving
only very limited assistance from the South East Asia Treaty Organization
(SEATO). Questions were also raised over whether the US had violated the
1954 Geneva Accords on the future of Vietnam, especially when the
Eisenhower administration supported Saigon’s refusal to participate in
national elections to reunify Vietnam in 1956.27 As with Korea, the Vietnam
War was also distinguished by the fact that it was never sanctioned by a
Congressional declaration of war. The closest any administration came to
such a declaration was the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, procured from
the Congress by President Johnson. The Joint Resolution allowed Johnson
‘to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces
of the United States and to prevent further aggression’.28 The Congress acted
under the assumption that the resolution would deter further aggression in
Vietnam and prevent the US becoming involved in an extended conflict.
There was a broad understanding among the Members of Congress that they
were not issuing the equivalent of a declaration of war. But the resolution
had effectively given Johnson a blank cheque to wage whatever war he
deemed necessary in Vietnam, and Congress was not approached for any
28 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

further authorizations. Quite apart from the dubious constitutionality of

such an action, the event that allowed for the resolution was itself of ques-
tionable nature. Evidence suggests that the second of two alleged attacks on
the US destroyer Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin never actually occurred.
Johnson also misled Congress by failing to tell them that the attacks,
if indeed they did take place, had most likely been provoked by secret
commando raids conducted against nearby North Vietnamese islands.29
Americans would later look back at the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as
evidence that from the very beginning of major US involvement in Vietnam
they had reason to doubt the word of their leaders and question the legal-
ity of intervention. Yet US history is riddled with examples of the US
government pursuing policies based on dubious justifications, if not deceit.
The mysterious sinking of the Maine in Havana harbour had helped to give
President McKinley cause to fight the Spanish–American War. Questions
have been raised concerning the relationship between President Roosevelt’s
desire for a pretext to join the Second World War and his prior knowledge
of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Indeed, in the years following
the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Democratic Senator William J. Fulbright
would state bluntly that: ‘FDR’s deviousness in a good cause made it much
easier for [President Johnson] to practice the same kind of deviousness in a
bad cause.’30
In addition to challenging the American justifications for the war,
opponents of the war also raised questions about the legality and morality
of American conduct in Vietnam. The traditional belief that the US had
nothing but benign intentions towards other peoples seemed increasingly
countered by reports returning from Vietnam. American policies and con-
duct seemed to show a remarkable insensitivity towards the Vietnamese
people whom the US was supposed to be at war to defend. Policies such
as the Strategic Hamlet relocation programme of 1962–63, the hunting
down of National Liberation Front (NLF)31 cadres in 1969 under the Phoenix
Program, and the establishment of ‘free-fire zones’ across South Vietnam,
demonstrated the scant regard among American policy makers for the value
of individual Vietnamese lives while they pursued what they perceived as
the greater good of protecting South Vietnam from communism.
During the extensive bombing campaigns against targets in North and
South Vietnam, the Pentagon was accused of repeatedly and deliberately
attacking non-military targets of no strategic value in contravention of
international law. Hospitals, schools, churches, ‘friendly’ villages, and vil-
lages containing mostly women and children were frequently targeted. That
such raids were ‘accidental’ seemed contradicted by evidence that multiple
bombing missions were run against the same targets, such as the 39 separate
attacks on the Quyuh Lap leper colony and sanatorium.32 Many Americans
also found objectionable the types of weapons used in bombing runs,
such as fragmentation bombs, napalm and phosphorous bombs.33 That the
 The End of American Exceptionalism? 29

US could employ such weapons, especially against civilians, seemed an

indication that the nation had lost its sense of morality. Americans were
used to condemning their enemies for acts of brutality but considered them-
selves above such actions. Yet Americans had bombed civilians in the past,
of course, most notably the firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo and the
atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These earlier uses of indis-
criminate force had carried a heavy moral burden yet were considered justi-
fied by most Americans as they had been in the pursuit of what was
considered a good cause. Political commentator Bill Moyers made clear what
he considered the difference between Vietnam and those earlier American
wars. In 1971, he wrote: ‘Americans have fought brutally in other wars . … We
have abandoned propriety before; we have never before doubted the reason
for doing so, as we doubt it now.’34
The general lack of consideration for the wishes and human rights of the
Vietnamese was most graphically illustrated by the My Lai massacre on
March 16, 1968. American soldiers massacred 347 men, women, children,
and babies, and burned the hamlet to the ground despite meeting with
no resistance or hostility.35 The questionable morality of US conduct in
Vietnam was also revealed by an infamous statement following the shelling
of a Mekong Delta village called Ben Tre during the Tet offensive. An
American officer declared: ‘It became necessary to destroy the town in order
to save it.’36 The disregard for the Vietnamese as a people was further exem-
plified by the use of ‘body counts’ and ‘kill ratios’ as a measure for progress
in a war that could not provide conventional measurements such as gains
and losses of territory. As a result, it seemed that ‘death and destruction had
some absolute value in terms of winning the war’.37 Such an impression
raised major moral objections to the conduct of the war. To base US progress
in a war on attempting to indiscriminately kill as many enemy forces as
possible seemed contrary to the idea that the US was fighting a war in the
highest moral spirit, to protect freedom and to further the betterment of
mankind. The conduct of the war in Vietnam indicated to many Americans
that the US could act in ways as unexceptional as those of any other nation.
The continued American support for unpopular, corrupt South Vietnamese
governments raised many questions about the American commitment to
democracy and whether the US was wrongly involved in what was essentially
a civil war. However, the corrupting effects of the war in Vietnam were felt
even more keenly at home. Americans became increasingly concerned about
what the war was doing to freedom and democracy in the US. Johnson had
lied to Congress about the true nature of events in Vietnam from the outset.
As argued above, though, it was nothing new that the justifications for
escalating the Vietnam War were based on dubious premises; in fact it can
even be regarded as part of a long tradition. As the war dragged on, however,
the sense that Americans could not trust their leaders grew as rapidly as the
credibility gap between official pronouncements of progress in the war and
30 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

the reports from the fighting in Vietnam. This perception was given its
greatest impetus by the events surrounding the ‘Tet’ holiday – the time of
the Vietnamese New Year – at the end of January 1968.
In late 1967, the Johnson administration launched a public relations
campaign, spearheaded by General William Westmoreland, in an attempt
to stem the gradual erosion of support for the war by emphasizing ‘the light
at the end of the tunnel’. Yet on January 30, 1968, what Westmoreland had
portrayed as a ‘bankrupt’ enemy with ‘not combat-effective’ battalions
launched attacks against major targets all over South Vietnam that sent
shock waves throughout the United States – the so-called Tet offensive.
Westmoreland claimed that Tet was actually a great victory for the US and
South Vietnam since the insurgents failed to establish any firm holds on ter-
ritory, did not incite a popular uprising or bring the downfall of the Saigon
government, and incurred extremely heavy losses. Although the NLF was
heavily depleted by Tet and became totally dependent on Hanoi for the first
time in the war, the US faced even more serious consequences. As Bernard
Brodie noted, the Tet offensive was ‘probably unique in that the side
that lost completely in the tactical sense came away with an overwhelming
psychological and hence political victory’.38 Even though US forces had
been victorious, the reality of a country-wide enemy onslaught jarred
embarrassingly with the confident rhetoric of the previous three months.
The Tet offensive demonstrated graphically to the American people that
contrary to what their government might be telling them the war was not
being won and that there was certainly no end to the communist threat
in sight. No matter what their generals or their president might say, the sup-
posedly bankrupt and defeated enemy had shown its ability to strike more
fiercely than ever before anywhere in South Vietnam. The war was not on
the brink of victory for the US; indeed it appeared the Vietnamese commu-
nists would never stop fighting. Progress had not been made and the sacri-
fice of lives and resources and the war’s divisive effects on the homefront
had all been for naught. The official assurances of the previous year
appeared now as nothing but hollow lies.
In actual fact, though, it was elite and official opinion rather than the
American public that was most affected by Tet. Public support for the war
shifted very little despite the surprise Tet offensive. As John E. Mueller
argues: ‘public support for and opposition to the war in Vietnam [had] hard-
ened … to the point where events were less likely to make much of an
impression.’39 Elite and official opinion, however, did take a significant turn
against the war, with influential opinion leaders in the Congress, the media,
among educators, business executives, clergymen, and other elites deciding
the conflict was ‘futile’ and ‘no longer worth the effort’.40 This realization
even penetrated the Johnson administration, with the president’s advisers
reassessing the situation in Vietnam and convincing him to call a halt on
bombing and seek a negotiated settlement. Announcing the new policy
 The End of American Exceptionalism? 31

towards Vietnam on March 31, 1968, Johnson shocked the nation by pledging:
‘I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another
term as your president.’41 Johnson had perhaps been more deeply affected by
the Tet offensive than any other individual in Washington. His personal stand-
ing among the American public plummeted. The ‘light at the end of the
tunnel’ campaign of late 1967 had brought approval of the president’s conduct
of the war back up to 40 per cent. But after Tet this approval crashed to an
all-time low of 26 per cent. Johnson’s overall approval rating also fell from
48 per cent to another new low of 36 per cent. It became clear that a majority
of the American public did not trust their president or believe his policies, at
least in Vietnam, credible.42 Yet if the American public could not trust
President Johnson, their faith in the exceptionalism of their nation would be
challenged even more severely by his successor.
The Tet offensive had revealed the reality of the inconclusive nature of the
war in Vietnam. However, US involvement in Vietnam was to drag on for
five more years. Republican candidate Richard Nixon won the presidential
election in November 1968 pledging to end the war in Vietnam, but he was
not interested in ending it immediately. He insisted that the American with-
drawal must be ‘honorable’. Any rapid abandonment of the commitment to
South Vietnam would be callously out of character with the American tra-
dition of defending free peoples under the threat of aggressors. Nixon and
his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, also argued that US credibil-
ity was at stake. According to Nixon: ‘this first defeat in our Nation’s history
would result in a collapse of confidence in American leadership, not only in
Asia but throughout the world.’43 Nixon and Kissinger came to power deter-
mined to establish a new international order based on the primacy of the
United States. They sought to improve American relations with both China
and the Soviet Union. To make this possible, though, they believed the
US must be perceived as acting from a position of strength. Any withdrawal
from Vietnam, therefore, would have to be conducted in a manner which
demonstrated to allies and adversaries that the US was still a force to be reck-
oned with in international affairs. As Kissinger remarked: ‘However we got
into Vietnam … whatever the judgment of our actions, ending the war hon-
orably is essential for the peace of the world. Any other solution may unloose
forces that would complicate the prospects for international order.’44 Nixon
shared the fears of his adviser: ‘Our defeat and humiliation in South Vietnam
without question would promote recklessness in the councils of those great
powers who have not yet abandoned their goals of world conquest.’45
‘Peace with honor’, as defined by Nixon and Kissinger, meant that the
American withdrawal from Vietnam must be carried out in such a way that
it could not in any sense be considered a defeat. A withdrawal that caused
the immediate downfall of the South Vietnamese government would,
according to Nixon’s definition, be a defeat. Although he admitted the need
to extricate the US from Vietnam, there remained the hope that victory was
32 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

possible or at least that total defeat could be delayed until long after a full
American withdrawal.
The policy adopted by Nixon in pursuit of this honourable peace was one
he had inherited from Johnson: ‘Vietnamization’. American forces were
gradually reduced while the strength of the South Vietnamese military was
built up so that it could eventually assume the full burden of the war. While
scaling down US troop levels, however, Nixon would continue to employ US
firepower against North Vietnamese targets in order to force compliance at
the negotiating table. Nixon portrayed Vietnamization as a policy which
could secure an honourable peace while minimizing the sacrifices paid by
Americans. In many ways, it had the desired effect. In the four years lead-
ing to the Paris peace accords which ended the American war, the level of
US troops in Vietnam was reduced from 550,000 to 24,000, the weekly
American casualty rate declined from hundreds to less than 25, and the
annual expenditure on the war fell from a high of $25 billion to around
$3 billion. The South Vietnamese regime had also been bolstered with mil-
itary equipment and training assistance to a point where the Nixon admin-
istration believed the Saigon regime had a ‘better than even chance’ of
holding off the communists. This was provided the US Congress continued
to appropriate substantial economic and military aid to Saigon and did not
rule out the possibility that US troops would return to Vietnam if the peace
accords were broken.46
Yet Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department official who helped
compile the top-secret ‘Pentagon Papers’ and then leaked them to the
New York Times, wrote in September 1969 that the Vietnamization policy was
a ‘bloody, hopeless, uncompelled, hence surely immoral prolongation of US
involvement in [the Vietnam] war’.47 His judgement seemed to be con-
firmed by the apparent escalations of the war under Nixon even as he with-
drew American troops. Public frustrations at the inconclusiveness of the war
and the sense that the nation’s highest officials could not be trusted were
further fuelled by actions taken during Nixon’s presidency. The invasion of
Cambodia in April 1970, revelations of the secret campaign of bombing that
country, the killing of American students at Kent State and Jackson State
universities, the extension of ground operations to Laos in February 1971,
the mining of Haiphong harbour and massive increase of bombing cam-
paigns against North Vietnam in May 1972, and the so-called Christmas
bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong in December of that year, all caused
various levels of public and Congressional furore.48
The Paris peace accords, which officially brought an end to the American
war on January 27, 1973, could barely be considered to have achieved ‘peace
with honor’. The peace did allow for the complete withdrawal of US forces,
but it was a cease-fire in place, enabling North Vietnamese troops to remain
inside South Vietnam. Although the treaty presumed that the fate of
Vietnam would be settled by political means, all the parties involved were
 The End of American Exceptionalism? 33

certain that it would actually be resolved by force. ‘Peace with honor’

provided little more than a pause in the ongoing struggle for control of
Vietnam. It extricated the US but it did little to ensure enduring peace and
security for South Vietnam.49
The costs of Nixon’s strategy were also extremely high. Over a third of
the total American casualties in the war occurred while Nixon sought peace
with honour. Between 1969 and 1973, 20,553 American, 107,504 South
Vietnamese, and more than half a million North Vietnamese and NLF
combat deaths were recorded. There is no adequate accounting of civilian
casualties for the period but these were also very substantial.50 The greater
part of the mass of bombs dropped on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were
unleashed during the Nixon years, killing, maiming, or destituting millions
of civilians, destroying vast tracts of countryside, and wrecking much of the
infrastructure throughout Indo-China.51
Yet four years of further expenditure of lives, money, and materiel had
done little to alleviate the crisis in Vietnam. It had certainly not provided a
victory for the United States. The shoring up of South Vietnam’s armed
forces allowed a so-called ‘decent interval’ between the withdrawal of the
last American troops on March 29, 1973 and the fall of South Vietnam to
Communist forces on April 30, 1975.52 But it could not hide the fact that
the US had failed to achieve its objectives in Vietnam. For the first time in
the nation’s history, the United States had lost a war. Americans could
not help but feel that all the lives and resources expended in Vietnam had
been wasted. The US was supposed to be an exceptional nation, above the
corrupt immorality of the rest of the world. Yet in Vietnam, its leaders had
conducted a war whose legitimacy was questionable and objectives often
unclear and increasingly unattainable. The nation’s leaders were accused of
employing inhumane forms of warfare and of persistently lying to the
American people about how the war was progressing and what was being
done to bring about a victory. This sense that the American people could no
longer trust their leaders was further compounded by the events and reve-
lations surrounding the Watergate affair. The United States seemed to have
shown itself just as fallible and unexceptional as any other nation in history.
Yet there was no consensus on any of the matters that indicated to some
Americans that the US was no longer, if indeed it ever had been, an excep-
tional nation. The questions concerning the legality and morality of the
justifications for the Vietnam War and the conduct of the fighting found
just as many answers among supporters of the campaign as they did among
dissenters: It was the North Vietnamese who had broken the Geneva
Accords. American action was justified as it was in response to aggression
perpetrated by the Soviet Union and China and was necessary to stem the
spread of communism. The Saigon government may not have been immune
to corruption but it was far more benign than a communist regime would
be. There may have been regrettable civilian deaths but the responsibility
34 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

for all the violence in Vietnam must lie with the Hanoi government for
perpetrating hostilities, not with the Americans. The US military was only
denied total victory by weak-minded politicians in Washington and the lack
of full support from the American public. As Nixon insisted in his famous
‘silent majority’ speech: ‘North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the
United States. Only Americans can do that.’53
In addition to there being no agreement among Americans over whether
the conduct of the war signalled an end to American exceptionalism, there
is further evidence to suggest that the idea of the US as a special nation with
a special destiny would survive the defeat in Vietnam. As with previous
times of domestic disagreement over foreign policy content and direction,
advocates on both sides of the Vietnam issue utilized the rhetoric of excep-
tionalism in their arguments. We have already seen how Lyndon Johnson
used such language and ideas. Richard Nixon also made attempts to appeal
to traditional American beliefs, not least in his ‘silent majority’ speech:

Two hundred years ago this Nation was weak and poor. But even then,
America was the hope of millions in the world. Today we have become
the strongest and richest nation in the world. And the wheel of destiny
has turned so that any hope the world has for the survival of peace and
freedom will be determined by whether the American people have
the moral stamina and the courage to meet the challenge of free world
leadership.
Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful
nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed
the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated
by the forces of totalitarianism.54

The war’s opponents also based many of their arguments on the idea that
the US is a special nation with a special destiny. Senator J. William Fulbright,
who became one of the most outspoken congressional opponents of the war,
believed the US had been ‘generous and benevolent in intent’ in Vietnam
but had nevertheless fallen prey to what he termed ‘the arrogance of power’.
Fulbright argued that the US was not immune from the temptations that
befell other nations: ‘we are not God’s chosen savior of mankind but only
one of mankind’s more successful and fortunate branches, endowed by our
Creator with about the same capacity for good and evil, no more or less,
than the rest of humanity.’ Fulbright recognized two distinct strands of
American national character, both charged with a ‘kind of moralism’. He
argued that: ‘one is the morality of decent instincts tempered by the knowl-
edge of human imperfection and the other is the morality of absolute self-
confidence fired by the crusading spirit.’ Fulbright feared the latter strand
was coming to dominate and that ‘much of the idealism and inspiration is
disappearing from American policy’. His solution was for Americans to
 The End of American Exceptionalism? 35

ensure that the ‘strand of humanism, tolerance, and accommodation’

remain dominant. He contended that:

The foremost need of American foreign policy is a renewal of dedication

to an ‘idea that mankind can hold to’ – not a missionary idea full of
pretensions about being the world’s policemen but a Lincolnian idea
expressing that powerful strand of decency and humanity which is the
true source of America’s greatness.

Far from signalling the end of American exceptionalism, Fulbright contin-

ued to believe that ‘America has a service to perform in the world’ which is
to ‘do good … by the force of her own example’ as a ‘free society enjoying
its freedom to the fullest’. Despite Vietnam, the US remained a nation
‘[f]avored … by history, by wealth, and by the vitality and basic decency of
its diverse population’.55 Fulbright was advocating the exemplar strand of
exceptionalism over the missionary one. Although they represented oppo-
site sides in the debate over Vietnam, Fulbright and Nixon shared the same
use of language which was based in the belief in American exceptionalism.
Their conceptions of the nature and consequences of America’s special
role in the world may have differed but their discourse was nevertheless
grounded in a shared notion that there was something special about the
United States.
Despite its diversity, the anti-war movement became increasingly associ-
ated in the minds of many Americans with the so-called counterculture of
the late 1960s and early 1970s. Members of the counterculture were charac-
terized as Americans who ‘reject patriotism, respect for the police, puritan
sexuality, the work-and-success ethic, consumerism, education as a social lad-
der, and, perhaps above all, the underlying presumption of Middle America
that the American social order is a good and just one’.56 The New Left anti-
war activists often condemned the American system and its institutions and
spoke out against what they perceived as the evils of American capitalism and
imperialism. The more radical elements, such as the Weathermen, even advo-
cated armed revolution. However, most opponents of the war did not
entirely reject American values and principles. As Todd Gitlin observes, much
of ‘the movement’s élan and language were utterly American. It did not speak
in Marxese dialects. If anything … the SDS Old Guard were steeped in a most
traditional American individualism’.57
The opposition of many of the war’s protesters stemmed from a belief that
the US was conducting itself in ways that were inconsistent with the values
and principles upon which it was founded. But that did not mean that those
opponents rejected such values. On the contrary, many believed they must
oppose the war in order that those values might be reaffirmed. David
Stockman, who later in life would become President Reagan’s director of the
Office of Management and Budget, expressed his opposition in such terms
36 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

as an anti-war leader at Michigan State University in April 1967:

A nation is not defined by the particular policy, of a particular adminis-

tration, in power at a particular point in time. Rather, the genius of a
nation is expressed in those lofty ideals and broad spiritual currents
which have threaded their way through the fabric of its history. … Many
of us feel that American intervention in Vietnam runs contrary to the
spirit of this historical tradition. Therefore, our commitment to the real
core values and ideals that have made this nation great, demands that we
oppose the war.58

This desire to see the US resume what was perceived as its traditional benev-
olent behaviour towards other nations was reflected in the arguments of
other opponents of the war. On a nationwide Moratorium Day on October 15,
1967, Democratic party activist Milton Shapp told an audience at Penn State
University: ‘Ours is a peaceful protest symbolizing the determination of an
aroused people to return the nation to the true pursuit of peace.’59 Yale
President Kingman Brewster, Jr aired similar sentiments: ‘Let us say simply
and proudly that our ability to keep the peace also requires above all that
America once again become a symbol of decency and hope, fully deserving
the trust and respect of mankind.’60
As with the anti-imperialists of 1898, those who opposed the Vietnam War
often did so in terms that were consistent with the belief in American excep-
tionalism. As with the earlier ‘Great Debate’ over the course of American
foreign policy, advocates on both sides of the Vietnam issue utilized the
language and ideas of traditional American beliefs to further their cause.
Although the belief in American exceptionalism was certainly shaken by the
events surrounding Vietnam, the continued use of its rhetoric during the
war indicated that the belief would survive this latest ‘trauma’ or ‘time of
trial’ in American history. That the belief in American exceptionalism would
persist beyond the Vietnam experience seemed confirmed further by the
reaction to the impending impeachment and subsequent resignation of
President Nixon in August 1974. Far from concluding that their political sys-
tem was just as fallible as that of any other nation, Americans generally cel-
ebrated the fact that their constitutional process of government had worked
and that a corrupt president had been rooted out and removed himself from
office before he could be ejected by the Senate.

Conclusions

Despite the lauding of the constitutional system that accompanied Nixon’s

resignation, the Watergate revelations, combined with the Vietnam experi-
ence and the general divisiveness of over a decade of social and politi-
cal upheaval, did have profound effects on American public confidence.
 The End of American Exceptionalism? 37

In 1974, opinion polls showed that Americans believed they were facing
problems worse than they could remember at any other time in their lives.
Of those polled by Daniel Yankelovich for Time magazine, 71 per cent
believed that ‘things are going badly in the country’ while 68 per cent
thought ‘the country is in deep and serious trouble today’. Loss of faith in
the institutions of government had almost doubled between 1968 and 1973,
and 88 per cent of Americans in 1974 mistrusted ‘the people in power in this
country’. The public felt ‘that the great national institutions command an
excess of power, which they abuse for selfish ends’. The loss of confidence
could, therefore, be attributed to a ‘crisis of moral legitimacy’. Americans
believed that the resolution of this crisis would be a restoration of American
values and principles to public life but they could not see how such an end
could be achieved.61 The editors of the New Republic characterized the period
as the ‘Tarnished Age’.62 Vietnam and Watergate had, as so many commen-
tators, public officials and ordinary Americans declared, inflicted deep
wounds in the American psyche. These psychological wounds may have
been vague and largely intangible but they did manifest themselves in nag-
ging doubts about the meaning and future direction of America. They raised
the question of whether there was a need for what Democratic Senator
Eugene McCarthy had termed in 1967 ‘a great reexamination by the
American people of what our objectives as a nation are’.63
The American commitments in the Cold War, and specifically in Vietnam,
had been framed in the language of American exceptionalism. The experi-
ence of Vietnam, compounded by the Watergate scandal, caused many
Americans to doubt or even cease to believe that their nation’s actions were
consistent with the values and principles upon which their society was sup-
posed to function. The Vietnam War and the Watergate revelations seemed
finally to reveal that the United States was just as fallible as any other
nation. As the above analysis shows, however, there were indications that
the belief in American exceptionalism would survive the period intact. As
with earlier periods of crisis and change in American history, advocates on
both sides of the Vietnam issue continued to utilize the rhetoric of American
exceptionalism in their arguments. The idea that the US was a special nation
with a special destiny seemed as though it might not lose its currency in
American discourse. The remaining chapters of this book will explore the
extent to which the belief in American exceptionalism survived the experi-
ence of Vietnam. The administrations of each post-Vietnam presidency,
beginning with Gerald Ford, will be analysed to show how each of them
attempted to utilize the rhetoric of American exceptionalism to heal the
‘wounds’ of Vietnam and Watergate and rebuild American self-confidence.
The consequences of the Vietnam War, and indeed Watergate, in US for-
eign policy were also somewhat ambiguous. The US Congress attempted to
reassert its role in foreign policy making in order to stem further presiden-
tial excesses and abuses of power, most visibly with the 1973 War Powers
38 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Act. But in times of crisis, and especially when force has been deployed, the
Congress has remained largely subordinate to the White House in the deci-
sion making process.64 The Vietnam War was also credited with the break-
down of the so-called Cold War consensus in foreign policy among both the
public and elites.65 Yet this consensus would have broken down with or
without Vietnam as the international situation changed through the course
of the 1960s, particularly in light of the Sino-Soviet split. The questions
concerning the lessons of Vietnam did, however, add to the breakdown of
consensus, not least by opening much debate over the future direction of US
foreign policy.
The defeat of US objectives by a technologically inferior enemy in
Vietnam indicated that there were limits to American power. The nature and
extent of these limits, however, continue to be a major source of debate and
have come to dominate discussions over foreign policy in each post-Vietnam
administration. Public officials, military strategists, journalists, scholars and
the American public could find no definitive answer to the question of what
the lessons of the Vietnam War were for American society. The term
‘Vietnam syndrome’ became widely used to describe the collective lessons
and legacies of the war, particularly in the political-military realm. The syn-
drome has been highly criticized, especially by conservative Americans, for
causing an unnecessarily stringent reluctance to employ military force as a
legitimate foreign policy option.66 Yet even those policy makers who have
advocated and utilized the use of force since Vietnam have been largely
restricted by a need to apply the instrumental lessons learned in that war.
The Vietnam syndrome, in its political-military sense, amounts to a set of
criteria that should be met if the US is to commit troops to combat. These
criteria must be satisfied if public support for military intervention is
to be sustained. Presidents feel the need to maintain public support for their
foreign policy largely because this grants it the moral legitimacy that became
so lacking in Vietnam. To avoid ‘another Vietnam’, policy makers have
therefore, followed the central criteria of the Vietnam syndrome, namely
that the US should not employ force in an international conflict unless: just
cause can be demonstrated, the objectives are compelling and attainable,
and sufficient force is employed to assure a swift victory with a minimum
of casualties. There has been disagreement over how these conditions
should be applied, but, as the following analysis will show, they have been
central to US foreign policy making in the post-Vietnam era.
In the remaining chapters, it will be shown how each post-Vietnam
president attempted to revive the perceived moral legitimacy of US foreign
policy, usually by rhetorically justifying actions in terms consistent with the
belief in American exceptionalism. The chapters will also demonstrate
that each administration’s foreign policy, especially in the application of
force, was conducted in accordance with the apparent lessons learned in
Vietnam that would enable the US to avoid again acting in ways that were
 The End of American Exceptionalism? 39

inconsistent with the ideas of exceptionalism. It will be shown how the

legacy of Vietnam became further institutionalized with each adminis-
tration. Finally, it will be concluded that despite the best efforts of each
administration, US foreign policy action was frequently out of step with
its exceptionalist rhetoric. As a result, doubts do continue to exist about
American power and the American role in the world even though a general
belief in American exceptionalism persists.
3
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
Faith in the moral legitimacy of actions pursued by the US is central to
the belief in American exceptionalism. It was this faith that was severely
shaken by Vietnam and Watergate. Much of the United States’ self-image,
and much of what most Americans believed made their nation exceptional,
remained intact. Few people were challenging the basic ideology of the US.
The ideas of economic freedom, individualism and liberty remained central
to the American beliefs system. There was also no need for an institutional
revolution. The constitutional framework had proved itself capable of deal-
ing with the various traumas Americans had suffered in the 1960s and early
1970s. The succession following the assassination of a president had been
smooth and immediate; a long, bloody and unpopular war had eventually
been brought to an end; and now a corrupt president had been removed
from office – all within the bounds of the constitutional system without the
need for the coups or revolutions that might have been expected in other
countries. Americans believed the system had worked; there was no need for
it to be changed. What had collapsed was the public’s faith in the moral
legitimacy of their nation. Those in power had fallen foul of the same abuses
and excesses of power that had tarnished other great nations throughout
history. The president and other officials representing the United States,
both at home and abroad, had adopted means and ends inconsistent with
the moral code that Americans believed had helped to make the US an

40
 Gerald Ford and the Time for Healing 41

exceptional nation. What was needed was not a change of the system or
the values and principles that supported it, but a restoration of the moral
standards by which Americans expected their leaders and representatives to
conduct themselves in operating that system and furthering those ideals.
Richard Nixon had been expected to restore the strength and unity of the
United States. Lyndon Johnson stepped down from the presidency having
divided the nation with his Vietnam policy. Nixon was elected on the
promise that he would end the Vietnam War and help restore Americans’
faith in themselves. Yet he merely compounded the sense that the US
was no longer a special nation. He prolonged and, in fact, expanded the war
in South East Asia and betrayed the trust of the American people with
Watergate. Nixon took the American public’s view of the moral legitimacy
of their nation to an all-time low. Following Nixon’s resignation, President
Ford faced a mammoth task in restoring public faith in the moral rightness
of the United States and thus in the belief in American exceptionalism.
The analysis in this chapter will consider the extent to which Ford utilized
the rhetoric of American exceptionalism to ‘heal the wounds’ of Vietnam
and Watergate and rebuild American self-confidence. Did such rhetoric
resonate with the American people thus indicating that the belief in excep-
tionalism had survived Vietnam and Watergate? In foreign policy, the focus
will be upon not only the use of exceptionalist rhetoric but also the extent
to which the apparent lessons of the Vietnam conflict influenced decision
making and policy. Whether the reality of Ford’s actions lived up to his ‘heal
the nation’ rhetoric or whether doubts remained at the end of his presidency
about the special nature of the United States will also be explored.
The American public welcomed Gerald Ford as their new president with
a great wave of optimism, as though they wanted to believe that recent
experiences had been aberrations rather than new norms. Three weeks into
his presidency, a Gallup poll showed only 3 per cent of respondents disap-
proved of the way the new president was handling his job.4 Ford appeared
to have an unblemished record of public service, as a Member of Congress
since 1948 and as vice president for eight months. He was widely respected
as an honest and decent man with whom the public could relate. Ford
seemed to them the perfect antidote to the years of suspicion and deceit
preceding him.
Much of this goodwill, however, disappeared when barely a month into
his presidency, Ford granted a full pardon to former President Nixon.
Although it appears he truly believed the pardon was for the good of the
nation, Ford had succeeded in making his task of healing the nation far
more difficult. Public confidence, temporarily buoyed by the prospect of a
fresh start with the honest and decent Ford, now plunged once again. The
president’s approval rating fell from 71 per cent to 50 per cent, the ‘sharpest
decline recorded for any president during his first two months in office’.5
The pardon of Richard Nixon was one more act to add to the litany of
42 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Vietnam, Watergate and their attendant scandals. The public concluded it

could trust this administration no more than its predecessors. The American
fall from grace seemed to be continuing.

The Ford foreign policy

Although his attempts at healing the wounds of Watergate may have

faltered with the pardoning of Nixon, Ford assumed the presidency also
believing he must do whatever necessary to restore confidence, both at
home and abroad, in American foreign policy. He needed to allay the fears
of allies that the US would retreat into isolation as a result of the defeat in
Vietnam. He also needed to convince enemies, both real and potential, that
the transition of power had not weakened American resolve and the ability
of the US to defend its interests world-wide. To help achieve both these
goals, Ford made clear that he would seek continuity in foreign policy and
build upon the very great accomplishments he considered his predecessor
had made in this area. Ford, therefore, retained most of Nixon’s foreign policy
making team with, most notably, Henry Kissinger remaining both national
security advisor and secretary of state. In his first State of the Union address,
Ford made clear that his administration would not shirk its global responsi-
bilities: ‘This is not a moment for the American people to turn inward. More
than ever before, our own well-being depends on America’s determination
and America’s leadership in the whole wide world.’6
Ford and his advisers also recognized that the American people demanded
a return to a foreign policy that embodied the moral values that tra-
ditionally were believed to have accompanied all foreign endeavours. In
his first address to Congress, Ford pledged ‘continuity in our dedication to
the humane goals which throughout our history have been so much of
America’s contribution to mankind’.7 In a draft submitted by the National
Security Council for inclusion in the speech, this point was expanded upon:
In the long run, the measure of the power of this nation will be measured
more by the texture of its moral fiber than by the strength of its military
sinew. The sinew is crucial – and, as I have said, this Administration will
not let that be weakened. But it is in the aspirations of our people that
our foreign policy is clearly rooted.8
Although omitted from the final draft, no doubt partly due to its inelegant
language, this passage shows clearly that Ford and his advisers recognized
the need to reassert the moral legitimacy of US foreign policy, at the very
least by using rhetoric that invoked the belief in American exceptionalism.
Ford made clear in April 1975 that he was sure the belief in American
exceptionalism would survive the experience of Vietnam:
[N]o other country can point to two centuries dedicated to expanding
and perfecting a continuing revolution in a free society. This is what
 Gerald Ford and the Time for Healing 43

makes America unique in the history of nations. And that is why,

although our experience in Indochina has been one of heroic sacrifices
and great disappointments, I am convinced that we can and will
emerge from this ordeal stronger and wiser as a nation, just as we have
from others even greater in the past.9
As Ford pledged in his 1975 State of the Union address: ‘Let us make America
once again and for centuries to come what it has so long been – a strong-
hold and a beacon-light of liberty for the whole world.’10 A central objective
of the Ford administration, therefore, was to conduct its foreign policy in a
manner that revitalized the traditional belief in the exceptional nature of
the United States.

The fall of Vietnam

Ford’s first efforts at national reconciliation through foreign policy were

somewhat thwarted, however, by events in South East Asia which conspired
to reinforce the views of those Americans who believed their country was
no longer the strongest, greatest nation on Earth. With the economy failing
and Ford’s approval rating still damaged by the pardoning of Nixon, the
president faced his first foreign policy crisis in April 1975. Communist forces
were overrunning first Cambodia, then South Vietnam. Americans were
about to be given a reminder of the trauma of Vietnam and the limits of
their nation’s power.
It was clear by early 1975 that the American-supported governments in
Phnom Penh and Saigon would not last long without substantial aid. Ford
requested additional funds from the Congress to help sustain the anticom-
munist regimes, arguing that the US had a moral obligation to support its
long-term friends and allies, especially the Saigon government. The world
was watching and, like so many presidents before him, Ford contended that
American credibility, already severely damaged by the experience in South
East Asia, was at stake once again.11 Many Members of Congress, however,
had come to believe that presidents had gained too much control over for-
eign policy making since the Second World War. Towards the end of the
Vietnam War, the Congress had reasserted its Members’ convictions that it
was their constitutional right to be a partner in that process with legislation
such as the 1973 War Powers Act. Members of Congress were also increas-
ingly less willing to defer to presidential judgement in matters of financing
foreign policy. Ford had already met with opposition to his preferred poli-
cies over continued military support for Turkey despite that nation’s inva-
sion of Cyprus.12 The Congress was even less convinced by Ford’s arguments
concerning Vietnam and Cambodia and refused his requests fearing that fur-
ther military aid could be the first step towards still more years of costly
involvement in Indo-China. They would authorize funds for the evacuation
44 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

of Americans and the provision of humanitarian aid but no further military

assistance would be forthcoming.13
On April 17, 1975, Phnom Penh capitulated. Six days later, with the fall
of Saigon imminent, Ford gave a speech in New Orleans conceding that the
US would not intervene again in Vietnam. In anticipation of the final defeat
of American objectives in Vietnam, Ford called upon the idea of American
exceptionalism in an attempt to move the US forward and ‘begin a great
national reconciliation’. Making use of the recurrent healing of wounds
theme, he declared that:
Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam.
But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as
America is concerned. As I see it, the time has come to look forward to
an agenda for the future, to unify, to bind up the Nation’s wounds, and
to restore its health and its optimistic self-confidence.
Ford admitted that: ‘We, of course, are saddened indeed by the events in
Indo-China. But these events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of
the world nor of America’s leadership in the world.’ He insisted that the ‘true
source of American power’ was not its military strength but ‘our belief in
ourselves and our belief in our Nation’. The task ahead, according to Ford,
was to revive the traditional belief that the US was a special nation with
a special destiny, despite the defeat in Vietnam: ‘Let us resolve tonight to
rediscover the old virtues of confidence and self-reliance and capability that
characterized our forefathers two centuries ago.’ He concluded with a rousing
reiteration of exceptionalist rhetoric: ‘Let the beacon light of the past shine
forth from historic New Orleans … and from every other corner of this land
to illuminate a boundless future for all Americans and a peace for all
mankind.’14 While most Americans would gladly have put Vietnam behind
them at this point, the ignominious withdrawal from Saigon a week later
would once again thrust Vietnam to the forefront of people’s minds.
On April 29, 1975, Saigon fell to the Vietnamese communists. Americans
witnessed yet more television pictures from Vietnam, this time of the fran-
tic scenes in Saigon as closely loyal South Vietnamese and the last of the
Americans were evacuated by helicopter from the roof of the US Embassy.
Thousands of people were seen clamouring at the gates, begging to be taken
away as the sound of gunfire approached ever nearer. These scenes, com-
bined with pictures of South Vietnamese Air Force helicopters being dumped
from the deck of an American aircraft carrier, signalled the end of US
involvement in Vietnam and the final defeat of US objectives in the region.
The episode was a reminder of the agony Americans had suffered for so long
and a final indication that all the lives, material, and dollars spent, all the
unrest and division the war had created at home, were for naught: they had
merely delayed the inevitable. The United States had been defeated totally
for the first time in its history.
 Gerald Ford and the Time for Healing 45

The American Ambassador in Saigon, Graham Martin, had warned

Kissinger that a hasty evacuation from Saigon by the Americans ‘would be
considered an humiliating act which may have long-term psychological
effects on United States foreign policy’.15 Commander Richard Stratton,
a former American prisoner of war in Vietnam, agreed that: ‘American dis-
engagement from Viet Nam was inevitable, but the manner in which we did
it was embarrassing.’16 Roy Rowan and William Stewart observed in Time
that the panicked drama of the evacuation was ‘made doubly bitter by the
fact that most Americans had made their emotional peace with Viet Nam
more than two years ago’. Now Americans seemed faced with ‘the only war
they would have to lose twice’. The process of ‘putting Viet Nam behind us’
was not going to be as easy as many Americans had hoped. As Rowan and
Stewart concluded: ‘Ending America’s mental and emotional involvement
may prove as hard as ending its physical involvement. The US may have to
live for some time with old – and new – nightmares.’17 The psychological
impact of this final American acceptance of total defeat of its objectives in
Vietnam did not go unnoticed outside the United States. In London, The
Times observed that events in Indo-China had resulted in ‘a serious loss of
confidence – not in the first instance among America’s allies, but within the
US itself. It is this, rather than the fall of Vietnam, that could gradually erode
America’s influence abroad if it is not resolved within a reasonable time’.18
The final abandonment of Vietnam also had other, more tangible conse-
quences. Thousands of refugees fled the country as the communist armies
advanced. Ford felt the US had a moral obligation to accept as many refugees
as possible but again the Congress was unwilling to release funds to finance
any resettlement. Its members appeared content to put the whole episode
behind them and move on to other matters. Many of them received letters
and phone calls from constituents overwhelmingly against allowing
refugees into the country. Most Americans appeared concerned about the
impact on an already flagging economy. Some feared, however, that com-
munists would infiltrate the US as refugees, while others gave racist or xeno-
phobic reasons for refusing asylum.19 A Gallup poll found that only 36 per
cent of Americans believed Vietnamese refugees should be allowed to settle
in the US while 54 per cent said they should not be admitted.20
Ford found such attitudes ‘unbelievable’.21 He invoked the belief in
American exceptionalism as he launched a campaign to secure a reversal in
congressional and public opinion. He declared: ‘This action does not reflect
the values we cherish as a nation of immigrants. It is not worthy of a peo-
ple which has lived by the philosophy symbolized in the Statue of Liberty.’
Ford argued that by welcoming the Vietnamese and Cambodians, as they
had Cubans, Hungarians, and other peoples displaced by communist
actions, Americans would go a long way towards restoring their reputation
as the ‘asylum for all mankind’. He concluded that: ‘To do otherwise would
be a repudiation of the finest principles and traditions of America.’22
46 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Ford’s use of rhetoric that evoked the idea that the US was an exceptional
nation with certain special duties to fulfil resonated with various groups,
organizations and individuals who came out in support of aiding the
refugees.23 The president did not only use such language in public forums,
but also based his argument on moral grounds when addressing congres-
sional leaders. He told Republicans from the House and Senate in a White
House meeting on May 6: ‘I cannot believe that the traditional compassion
of this great country is dead and that we Americans will no longer welcome
those whom we encouraged to defend themselves and now seek to live in
freedom.’24 Ford’s appeal to traditional ideas clearly worked. Much of the
public hostility to the refugees was replaced with thousands of offers of jobs,
homes and financial help that overwhelmed the volunteer agencies assisting
the State Department with the relocations.25 Following much pressure and
growing public support, the Congress relented and financed the admission
of almost 132,000 Indo-Chinese refugees.26 The episode had demonstrated
that the idea of American exceptionalism had not lost its rhetorical currency
among Americans, whether among the public or the elite. They might have
doubts that their institutions lived up to the demands of traditional
American values and principles, but Americans would still be responsive to
appeals based on those traditional beliefs when they were pressed to con-
sider whether their own feelings and actions matched up with them.
The fall of Saigon had nevertheless reopened many of the old wounds just
when Ford had hoped the healing process was under way. Ford had effec-
tively used exceptionalist rhetoric in the issue of the Vietnamese refugees,
but the American people needed more than words. They needed some tan-
gible proof that their nation had not been permanently weakened by all it
had gone through in recent years. They needed for their country to be seen
to act decisively, powerfully, and morally before they could fully believe
again in its special place among nations.

The Mayaguez incident

One of the major questions arising from the end of the Vietnam War was
where, when and how the US would again employ force to resolve an inter-
national crisis. The conflicting lessons of Vietnam suggested different
approaches to the appropriate use of force. Senator Mike Mansfield, the
Democratic majority leader, represented the views of those Americans who
believed force should only ever be employed again by the US as a last resort
under very particular conditions: ‘Military interventions, except in the inter-
ests of our own security, should become a policy of the past and should be
conducted only in proper consultation between the Executive and the leg-
islative branches.’27 Meanwhile others, including Henry Kissinger, believed
that military force remained a legitimate tool in international relations that
should be used swiftly and with maximum application whenever it was
 Gerald Ford and the Time for Healing 47

considered the most effective option. President Ford would not be drawn
publicly on what he considered to be the appropriate use of force in light of
Vietnam. He did state that he believed the ‘lessons of the past in Vietnam
have already been learned – learned by presidents, learned by Congress,
learned by the American people’.28 In foreign policy, Ford admitted that:

I think we … may have learned some lessons concerning how we would

conduct a military operation. … [I]f we ever become engaged in any mil-
itary operation in the future – and I hope we don’t – I trust we’ve learned
something about how we should handle such an operation.

He would not be drawn, however, on what exactly he felt Americans had

learned: ‘I wouldn’t want to pass judgment at this time. … I simply am indi-
cating that from that unfortunate experience in Vietnam, we ought to be in
a better position to judge how we should conduct ourselves in the future.’29
However, the response to the first foreign policy crisis after the fall of Saigon
did give a clear indication of the president’s attitude towards the use of force
and established a precedent for the post-Vietnam application of American
military power. But to what extent did this incident contribute to Ford’s
attempts at reviving the moral legitimacy of US foreign policy?
On May 12, 1975, the US merchant ship SS Mayaguez was seized by Khmer
Rouge gunboats some seven or eight miles from the Cambodian-held island
of Pulou Wei. Ford called an emergency NSC meeting to discuss the appro-
priate American response to what he considered an act of piracy in interna-
tional waters. The president decided to issue a statement to the Cambodians
through the Chinese government condemning the action and calling for the
immediate and unconditional surrender of the Mayaguez and her crew. On
May 14, with diplomatic efforts proving unsuccessful, US Marines were
ordered to search out and rescue any Americans held on the island of Koh
Tang, where the ship was anchored, and to retake the Mayaguez. In con-
junction with the rescue operation, military targets in and around the main-
land port of Kompong Som were bombed. The ship was retaken without
difficulty but the crew was not found. Meanwhile the Marines were meet-
ing heavy resistance on the island with no sign of the missing crew mem-
bers. Ford ordered his Press Secretary, Ron Nessen, to issue a statement to
the press revealing the rescue mission was under way and that he would call
off the military if the Cambodians announced the crew had been released.
Ford’s hope was that, in the absence of a direct diplomatic route, the Phnom
Penh government might be screening the international news wires. The
move may have worked, as within an hour a small fishing vessel with the
Mayaguez crew waving white flags on board was sighted by a navy pilot.
With the crew and ship safe, Ford ordered the Marines to extricate them-
selves from Koh Tang, but the bombing of Kompong Som continued for
another hour.30
48 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

The reaction to the rescue was overwhelmingly positive from almost all
quarters. During the crisis, public support for a strong stand had been wide-
spread. An NBC poll conducted on May 13–14 found 65 per cent of respon-
dents favouring military action to get back the ship and its crew.31 Similarly,
81 per cent of the readers of Ford’s homestate newspaper, the Detroit Free
Press, reportedly believed the president should ‘use any means necessary to
recover the ship’.32 Letters, telegrams and phone calls to the White House
during the crisis almost unanimously urged the president to take ‘swift, deci-
sive action’. Following the successful rescue attempt, 97 per cent of mail and
93 per cent of telephone calls to the White House supported the president’s
action.33 The words of two couples from Connecticut who telegrammed the
president were typical of public sentiment: ‘We applaud your efforts and
handling of the Mayaguez/Cambodia incident. Your strong, affirmative
action should remove the stigma that the US is a paper tiger.’34 Such views
were shared by Members of Congress. Max Friedersdorf, Ford’s Assistant for
Legislative Affairs, reported an ‘overwhelmingly favorable’ and ‘laudatory’
Congressional response to the president’s action. Senator Clifford Hansen
reflected the views of the majority of Congress Members when he spoke in
the Senate on May 15:

This has done more to restore confidence in Washington and to repair

the tarnished image of America worldwide than any event of the past
year. … America, by virtue of this action in Cambodia, serves notice on
the rest of the world that we have been misjudged badly should our with-
drawal from Indochina be thought indicative of a failure to stand for
principle throughout the world.35

Republican Carroll Hubbard, chairman of the 75 House Democratic fresh-

man members, congratulated the president on their behalf, saying: ‘It’s good
to win one for a change.’36 That the president’s action helped restore some
public confidence in their nation and its leadership seemed reflected in
Ford’s public approval rating which rose 11 points to 51 per cent in a Gallup
survey of June 12, 1975. In a reverse of the public’s reaction to the pardon
of Nixon, the Gallup Organization observed that this represented ‘one of the
sharpest gains ever recorded in Gallup surveys going back to the middle
1930s’. Certainly the gain was also effected by an upturn in public confi-
dence concerning the economy, but the main factor appeared to be Ford’s
reaction to the Mayaguez incident.37
Ford and his advisers had been well aware that no matter how they dealt
with the Mayaguez incident, their actions would come under considerable
public and congressional scrutiny. They were determined to show not only
that the US still had the will to stand up to aggression but also that it would
do so in a manner consistent with the values and principles that had tradi-
tionally characterized American action in the world. To this end, Ford was
 Gerald Ford and the Time for Healing 49

determined to ensure that the US appeared to conduct itself in a manner

acceptable to Congress and the American public. As Ford reported to the
Congress, the official line was that the seizing of the Mayaguez was a ‘hos-
tile act … in clear violation of international law’. The US had chosen to
respond with force only after ‘Appropriate demands for the return of the
Mayaguez and its crew were made, both publicly and privately, without
success’. Ford insisted that all military action was taken with the clear and
limited objective of rescuing the ship and its crew. The tactical bombing
of military targets in the area of Kompong Som was strictly surgical and
justified ‘in order to prevent reinforcement or support from the mainland’
by Cambodian forces.38
Whether the operation was truly legitimate and whether it contributed to
a revival of the United States acting within the tradition of exceptionalism
is open to debate. Questions can be raised about how comprehensively the
Ford administration attempted to resolve the crisis diplomatically. Such
efforts were severely handicapped by the absence of official diplomatic
channels, the indifferent approach of the Chinese government as interme-
diary, and perhaps most importantly the ambiguity of whether the seizure
of the ship was officially sanctioned or the independent act of a local com-
mander. Given these problems, 60 hours was hardly a reasonable amount of
time within which to expect diplomatic efforts to bring about a resolution.
Moreover, though, it seems clear from discussions within the NSC that
a military resolution was always intended and that any diplomacy was seen
as perfunctory.
The recently declassified minutes from the first of the four NSC meetings
held during the crisis reveal that Kissinger believed from the outset that
‘negotiation, even if we get the ship back, … is not to our advantage’.
Kissinger and Ford agreed that the administration should ‘make a strong
statement and give a note to the Cambodians, via the Chinese’. However,
they were both adamant from the start that ‘a show of force’ was the pre-
ferred option. Military action was necessary, argued Kissinger, in order to
send a message, not only to the Cambodians but also the Soviet Union and
others, that any such challenge to the US would not go unanswered.
Although the first priority should be the swift retrieval of the ship and its
crew, Kissinger stressed that the current image of the United States abroad
was also a factor to be considered in how to resolve the situation. The US
must be seen to act decisively for the sake of its international prestige.39
Vice President Nelson Rockefeller agreed, recalling the 1968 seizure of the
USS Pueblo. In that case, failure to act swiftly and forcefully had caused
the crew to suffer over a year in a North Korean prison while their release
was negotiated. With barely two weeks passing since the final hurried with-
drawal from Vietnam, the American people would not have the patience to
endure a similar embarrassment. Rockefeller also believed the American
response to the seizure of the Mayaguez would be regarded as a ‘test case’ by
50 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

other foreign adversaries. He believed, as a result, that: ‘we need something

strong soon. … I think a violent response is in order. The world should know
that we will act and that we will act quickly.’40 Kissinger reiterated this line
of thinking in the third NSC meeting of the crisis held the following night:
‘We have the opportunity to prove that others will be worse off if they tackle
us, and not that they can return to the status quo.’ The chosen response
would affect the way not only Cambodia, but also North Korea and the
Soviet Union regarded the United States. It was imperative that the admin-
istration take full advantage of this opportunity to show the world that
American power and will had survived the Vietnam debacle.41
That seeking a diplomatic solution was a low priority is further evidenced
by the lack of time dedicated during the NSC meetings to discussing
non-military options. Aside from the initial suggestion of sending a demand
for the ship’s release via Chinese intermediaries, there was no further con-
sideration of diplomatic efforts except to confirm that no response to the
original contact had been received. Ford, Kissinger, Secretary of Defense
James Schlesinger, CIA Director William Colby and others present instead
focused on various options involving force. They debated the possibility of
seizing Cambodian assets, establishing a blockade, mining Cambodian har-
bours, capturing a Cambodian ship or island, and even using B-52s to bomb
Cambodia, as well as the eventual decision to take the ship back by force
with supporting action against other Cambodian targets.
The Nixon administration had faced many questions concerning the
legality of actions taken against Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The
Ford administration was determined to avoid similar criticism and sought to
ensure that its actions were justified under international laws governing
the use of armed force. Ford’s counsel, Philip Buchen, advised the president
that under the UN Charter the United States was justified in taking military
action only in self-defence against the armed attack by the Cambodians on
the Mayaguez. This action must be ‘designed to recover the ship and the
crew’. Buchen warned, however, that the American response must be rea-
sonable and ‘not disproportionate in severity to the attack’. While the US
could legally use force to recover the ship and crew it could not take addi-
tional punitive action against Cambodia: ‘Acts of force designed to punish
Cambodia – as opposed to recovery of the ship and crew – are prohibited –
except as collective measures decided on by the UN Security Council.’42 Yet
it is again clear from the NSC meetings that the decision makers believed
some form of punitive action was necessary in order to send as strong
a message as possible to the Cambodians and others that the US would not
tolerate any violations of its interests or security. Schlesinger recommended
that after the ship had been rescued the US should ‘attack and sink the
Cambodian Navy … in order to maximize the punishment’. Rockefeller sug-
gested that at the conclusion of the rescue mission, the US should ‘destroy
the port as retaliation’.43 Although neither option was eventually pursued,
 Gerald Ford and the Time for Healing 51

Kissinger agreed with the sentiment, stating at the third meeting: ‘It is not
just enough to get the ship’s release. … I think we should seize the island,
seize the ship, and hit the mainland.’ When Buchen reminded the meeting
of the limits of what action was justified under international law, Kissinger
replied: ‘I think the worst stance is to follow Phil’s concern. If we only
respond at the same place at which we are challenged, nobody can lose by
challenging us. They can only win. … I would hit, and then deal with the
legal implications.’44 Although the bombing of the mainland may have
served tactical purposes to some degree, much of the reasoning behind it
was aggressive and punitive in nature. The operation can be regarded as
over-zealous and out of proportion to the original act of piracy. Such an
approach can be criticized for disregarding international law and standing
outside the tradition of a nation that supposedly represented the best hope
for freedom and justice in the world. Strategic interests were clearly more
important than any moral imperatives to Kissinger and the other decision
makers in the recovery of the Mayaguez.
Some journalists aired concerns that the main motivation for the choice
of a swift but costly military operation, rather than a longer but probably
less lethal diplomatic process, was the need to bolster American credibility
in international affairs. At a White House press conference on May 19, 1975,
Ford’s Press Secretary Ron Nessen was pressed on this issue. One reporter
related how Kissinger had told a press briefing that the operation to recap-
ture the Mayaguez was not an attempt to demonstrate American resolve in
the wake of Vietnam but that the sole purpose was to rescue the ship and
its crew. Nessen assured reporters that the latter was true, stating that ‘this
entire operation was designed for one purpose, and that was to get the crew
and the ship back safely’. Any subsequent restoration of American credibility
and confidence was a ‘byproduct … that can be considered a bonus to the
operation, but it was not the original impetus behind the operation’.45 Yet
the record of Kissinger’s arguments in the NSC meetings shows clearly that
the perceived need to demonstrate the power and resolve of the US was
a major consideration in the decision to take swift military action to end the
crisis. To admit as much, though, would have diminished the effects of the
mission’s success in showing that the US could act with resolve in pursuit of
a just cause. Had the public been aware of the decision makers’ keenness to
make an example of Cambodia, Americans might have further questioned
whether the mission was justifiable.
As it was, some criticism did come from Members of Congress
who claimed the President had not fulfilled the requirements of the 1973
War Powers Act. The Act obliges presidents to consult with the Congress
whenever possible in advance of any use of military force. The files of
John Marsh, Max Friedersdorf, and others in Ford’s Congressional Relations
Office all reveal that a large number of Senators and Representatives were
telegrammed or spoken with about the Mayaguez on May 13 and 14.
52 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Most of those contacted indicated their support and urged the president to
proceed as he saw fit. On the afternoon before the military action began,
Ford met with the bipartisan leaders of Congress, including Senator
Mansfield, House Speaker Carl Albert, the Floor leaders, the Whips, and the
chairs of the Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees, to discuss the
proposed action. As noted above, most Members of Congress congratulated
the president upon the success of the mission. Some, such as Senator
Mansfield, were unhappy with the White House, however, suggesting they
had been notified rather than consulted about the situation. House
Representative from New York, Elizabeth Holtzman, the Democrat who had
pursued Ford on the question of there being a deal behind the Nixon
pardon, was uncompromising in her criticism: ‘The President’s resort to
force in this case appears to have been illegal and unconstitutional. At best
the situation reflects terrible intelligence. At worst it is a reflection of faulty
Presidential judgment and overreaction.’46
Ford believed he had done all that was necessary to comply with the War
Powers Act by keeping key Members of Congress informed and allowing
them comment, meeting with the bipartisan leadership immediately before
the rescue operation began, and giving a written report to both chambers
within 48 hours of the first application of force (even though this was after
the operation had been completed). The Congress, however, was far from
a major participant in the decision making process. Although congressional
reaction was of some concern to Ford, all the major decisions were taken
within the NSC. The decision to seek a military solution was taken at the
first NSC meeting on the afternoon of May 12. The subsequent consulta-
tions with Members of Congress were of little consequence in the actual
planning and execution of the operation. Ford had made quite clear at the
first NSC meeting that decisions taken within the Executive would have
primacy no matter what the conclusion of the consultation process: ‘I can
assure you that, irrespective of the Congress, we will move.’47 Kissinger con-
firmed this perspective when asked by Rockefeller at the final NSC meeting
what the president should do if the congressional leadership opposed the
decision to employ force. Kissinger replied: ‘He would have to go ahead
anyway.’48 Even though most Members of Congress had aired their approval
of whatever action the president chose to take, the question of how far the
people’s representatives in the Congress contributed to the decision making
process rekindled some of the fears about too much unchecked power being
exercised by the Executive and the continued influence of the old guard
represented by Kissinger.
There was further disquiet following the operation that the threat posed
by the ship’s seizure did not warrant the relatively high human cost of
the mission to retrieve it. Although in original reports casualty figures
were low, it gradually became clear that the operation was very costly, with
 Gerald Ford and the Time for Healing 53

41 Americans killed (23 of them in a helicopter crash in Thailand en route

to join the rescue mission) and 50 wounded in an effort to save 39 crew
members. Ford himself admitted he was greatly disturbed by the fact that
more Americans died as a result of the mission than had been captured in
the first place.49 Such admissions left some Americans wondering whether
such losses were morally justifiable.
The resolution of the Mayaguez incident indicated to the American
people that, despite the reversal in Vietnam, their president was still able
and willing to use decisive force in defence of American interests around the
world. This belief did contribute to an upturn in public confidence in their
nation and its leadership. But the operation failed to fully restore Americans
confidence in their nation’s ability to meet crises abroad. The Mayaguez
operation had been swiftly executed and was relatively low risk with clear,
limited objectives. On the right, some questioned whether the action clearly
demonstrated that the US could stand up to any threat or aggression abroad.
On the left, critics argued that the incident showed the US would continue
to throw its military weight at international problems, as it had in Vietnam,
without sufficient energies being directed towards the more subtle and
morally acceptable diplomatic approach. Anthony Lewis observed wryly in the
New York Times that for ‘all the talk of principle, it is impossible to imagine the
United States behaving that way toward anyone other than a weak, ruined
country of little yellow people who have frustrated us’.50 A Gallup poll con-
ducted immediately before the crisis indicated the degree to which
Americans were evenly split over whether the US should employ force to
resolve international disputes. The poll found that 45 per cent of Americans
believed that war was an outmoded method of settling international differ-
ences while 46 per cent supported the use of force when necessary.51
The Mayaguez incident did not resolve this debate in the US over the moral
legitimacy of the use of force. The incident did, though, set the precedent
for the way in which US force could be applied abroad in the post-Vietnam
era and be deemed a success. To make it acceptable to the American people,
any military operation would have to be presented as having clear, morally
justifiable objectives that could be achieved swiftly using the maximum
force necessary at the lowest cost possible in lives and materiel.
Despite the remaining questions and anxieties about the Mayaguez
incident and the moral legitimacy of US foreign policy, Ford felt confident
in his belief that ‘the American people are getting out from under the
trauma of our problems in Vietnam’.52 Ford recalls in his memoirs that ‘the
gloomy national mood began to fade’. He believed that: ‘Many people’s faith
in their country was restored.’53 Ford and others looked upon his handling
of the crisis as the greatest political victory of his administration and con-
sidered that it contributed to the healing of the nation that the president
deemed his most important priority.
54 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Conclusions

The Ford presidency is often looked upon as a caretakership that for some
scholars hardly seems worth a mention in their histories of late twentieth
century America.54 Yet Ford was president for two and a half years and in
terms of its effects on the way Americans felt about themselves in the after-
math of a decade of social and political trauma it is an important period.
Gerald Ford was relatively successful in his self-proclaimed task of healing
the wounds of Vietnam and Watergate. In his candour and honesty he
restored much of Americans’ faith in the moral legitimacy of their political
leadership. In a post-election assessment in 1976, Hugh Sidey concluded
that although Ford had failed to retain office, he had during his presidency
‘furnished what the nation needed – solidity, courage, common sense and
honor. Ford’s stewardship was a welcome change from the decade of disar-
ray that began with the bullet that killed Kennedy’.55 This was perhaps never
clearer than in July 1976 when the nation’s bicentennial celebrations gave
Ford a unique opportunity to symbolically further the healing process he
saw as central to his leadership.
Ford gave a series of speeches, rich in the rhetoric of American excep-
tionalism, on and around the Fourth of July that called upon Americans to
rededicate themselves to the values and principles upon which the nation
was founded.56 Newsweek’s editors argued that ‘the vast collective experi-
ence’ of the celebrations ‘seemed to rekindle a lost spirit of hope’.57 The
Bicentennial acted as ‘a kind of catharsis’ that offered a positive way of
‘clearing the American soul’.58 Ford himself regarded the celebrations
as final evidence that the ‘nation’s wounds had healed. We had regained
our pride and rediscovered our faith and, in doing so, we had laid the
foundation for a future that had to be filled with hope’.59
In addition to symbolically revitalizing the faith in exceptionalism, Ford
also made attempts to revive American confidence in the power, will, and
moral certitude of the nation’s conduct abroad through what he considered
a firm approach to foreign policy. This was demonstrated in particular by
the Mayaguez incident where Ford indicated to allies, adversaries and
Americans themselves that the United States was still willing to apply mili-
tary force despite the chastening experience of Vietnam. He achieved other
successes too. His administration helped to ease tensions between Egypt and
Israel with the signing of the Sinai Accords. His Soviet policy also went at
least some way towards revitalizing detente and limiting the threat of
nuclear war through agreeing the framework for a second Strategic Arms
Limitation Treaty (SALT II) in November 1975.60
Ford did not, however, have an unblemished record in foreign affairs.
Concerns remained about the extent to which foreign policy decision making
was an executive prerogative and the degree to which conduct abroad was
founded upon the values and principles of the nation. As we have seen, the
 Gerald Ford and the Time for Healing 55

Mayaguez operation raised as many questions as it answered concerning the

use of American military power in the post-Vietnam era. The 1975
congressional investigation of the CIA shed further light on the extent of
the abuse of power during the Nixon and indeed earlier administrations,
both domestically and internationally. Ford’s decision to commit the CIA to
the conflict in Angola even while the agency was under investigation raised
further questions about his tact and moral certitude.61 Ford’s Soviet policy
also met with much criticism. SALT II and the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which
included a provision recognizing the permanence of post-Second World War
European borders, were characterized as sell-outs to the Soviet Union by
Ford’s opponents. Despite his best efforts, the ignominious scramble to evac-
uate Saigon also cast a dark reminder of the conflict and defeat in Vietnam
over Ford’s presidency.
Although Ford made much use of the rhetoric of American exceptionalism,
his foreign policy was largely determined by strategic, political or economic
interests rather than moral imperatives. His policy towards the Vietnamese
refugees following the fall of Saigon provided a rare instance, however, of
how the belief in American exceptionalism can have a direct influence upon
US foreign policy making. Ford did not simply couch his preferred policy
of admitting the refugees to the US in exceptionalist rhetoric but, on this
occasion, his belief in the special duties required of his exceptional nation
actually determined the policy to be taken. Basing his policy on traditional
American conceptions of the special nature of the US proved highly
successful in securing congressional and public approval. At other times,
though, as is clear from the decision making process during the Mayaguez
crisis, strategic and political interests took precedence over moral consider-
ations in the administration’s foreign policy.
Ford’s decision to pardon former President Nixon overshadowed all that
he achieved during his term in office. Regardless of his true motivations and
intent, the pardon aligned Ford with the corruption, secrecy, and arrogance
of his predecessor. It left enough doubt about the sincerity of his leadership
to contribute to the American public electing a Washington outsider to the
White House in 1976. In James Earl Carter, the American people placed their
hopes for a full restoration of the integrity of their national leadership and
a return to America’s place as foremost among nations.
4
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 nomina-
tion 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.

The healing of the nation

Carter acknowledged that his predecessor had done much to begin the heal-
ing process. In his Inaugural Address on January 20, 1977, Carter thanked
President Ford ‘for all he has done to heal our land’.1 Yet Carter had made
clear throughout his election campaign that he did not believe Ford’s
administration had done enough to restore American confidence. It had
been a ‘tired and worn-out administration without new ideas, without youth
or vitality, without vision and without the confidence of the American
people’.2 The Ford administration was inextricably linked with the causes of
what Carter called the ‘unprecedented doubt and soul-searching’ being
experienced throughout the United States.3 The pardoning of Nixon had
demonstrated this link all too clearly. In foreign policy too, Ford’s contin-
ued reliance on Henry Kissinger had made it difficult for the public to
fully trust his administration’s claim to have put the years of corrupt and
immoral policy behind. Carter and his advisers joined the chorus of critics

56
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 57

lambasting Kissinger’s so-called ‘Lone Ranger’ approach to the nation’s

foreign policy. Such criticism has been shown to be somewhat unwarranted
as Ford himself did play a considerable role in foreign policy making
and was certainly unwilling to grant Kissinger a free hand in all matters.
Nevertheless, the Ford administration was not seen to have broken with the
secretive foreign policy trends of recent years. As Carter’s National Security
Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has written, the new administration believed
they were inheriting a foreign policy ‘stalemated on the level of power and
excessively cynical on the level of principle’.4 In his first significant foreign
policy speech as president, given at the University of Notre Dame, Carter
observed: ‘The Vietnamese war produced a profound moral crisis, sapping
worldwide faith in our own policy and our system of life, a crisis of
confidence made even more grave by the covert pessimism of some of our
leaders.’5
Carter was determined, therefore, that his administration’s foreign policy
should be as open and accountable as possible. He wanted to involve the
public as much as he could and cooperate with Congress more readily than
previous administrations. Above all, though, Carter found it ‘urgent to
restore the moral bearings of American foreign policy’.6 He promised to
return the US to a foreign policy based upon the nation’s founding princi-
ples. In his Inaugural Address, Carter told the American people that histor-
ically the United States had ‘an exceptional appeal’ among nations, based
upon its dedication to moral principles. He called upon Americans to ‘Let
our recent mistakes bring a resurgent commitment to the basic principles of
our Nation.’ He believed the US must interact with other nations only in
ways consistent with the traditional beliefs of the American people. Carter
committed his administration to building ‘international policies which
reflect our own precious values’. This would ensure a revival of American
self-confidence and provide the rest of the world with ‘affirmation of
our Nation’s continuing moral strength and our belief in an undiminished,
ever-expanding American dream’.7

The Carter foreign policy

Much has been made of Carter’s inexperience in foreign affairs upon taking
office. Yet Carter had been a member of the foreign policy think-tank the
Trilateral Commission since 1973. It was from the Commission that he drew
his two main foreign policy appointees: National Security Advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski and Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance. Their conflicting views on
the appropriate direction and conduct of foreign affairs would become a
dominant feature of the Carter administration. Brzezinski was a realist with
a distaste for Wilsonian idealism, who regarded Soviet power as the main
obstacle to a stable world order.8 Vance was a patient and persistent diplo-
mat who distrusted absolutes of any kind. He acknowledged that force was
58 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

sometimes a necessary political tool but believed diplomacy was better

suited to the resolution of most situations.9 Their main point of contention
was over what Brzezinski characterizes as ‘the proper balance between power
and principle’ in US foreign policy. While Vance favoured solving interna-
tional disputes and problems through compromise and diplomatic negotia-
tion, Brzezinski regarded force, or at least the threat of force, as an
‘unavoidable ingredient’ which should be utilized by the administration to
support its principles in its foreign relations.10 This question of how the
American dedication to traditional values and principles should be balanced
with the demands and realities of international politics was central to the
administration’s attempts to restore the moral integrity and the interna-
tional prestige of the United States in world affairs. The extent to which the
administration sought and achieved this balance will be the focus of the
analysis in this chapter.
On the advice of Brzezinski and other officials within the administration,
Carter used his speech at the University of Notre Dame on May 22, 1977 to
increase public understanding of the rationale and broader purposes of
his foreign policy.11 His main purpose was to show ‘the strands that connect
our actions overseas with our essential character as a nation’.12 Carter made
clear that his foreign policy was to be a marked departure from that of recent
administrations. An ‘inordinate fear of communism’ had for too long
caused policy makers to overlook the strength of traditional American
values. Carter proclaimed:

For too many years, we’ve been willing to adopt the flawed and erroneous
principles and tactics of our adversaries, sometimes abandoning our own
values for theirs. We’ve fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is
better quenched with water. This approach failed, with Vietnam the best
example of its intellectual and moral poverty. But through failure we have
now found our way back to our own principles and values, and we have
regained our lost confidence.13

This section of Carter’s speech owes much to a powerful internal memo

written by speechwriter Jerry Doolittle. Doolittle was airing his frustrations
over early drafts of the speech which he believed failed to adequately
demonstrate the difference between the Carter foreign policy and that of his
predecessors. Doolittle wrote:

In the past, our foreign policy was based on the implicit assumption that
communism is superior to democracy. … So powerful are they [the Soviet
Union] that if we give them an inch, they will take the globe. But the
truth of it is that if we give them an inch, they are likely to choke on
it … And, at long last, we have come to understand this. What is new
about the Carter foreign policy is that it is not based on fear. Its basis is,
instead, a calm confidence in the superiority of our own system.
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 59

Doolittle then went on to outline the main reasons for that confidence in
democracy, concluding with the ‘fighting fire with fire’ analogy. He believed
this was the message the administration should be getting across to the pub-
lic. The President evidently agreed with him as the substance of Doolittle’s
memo was incorporated almost word for word into the final draft of the
speech.14
Carter’s closest foreign policy advisers agreed that the new administration
should develop a foreign policy that would fill what Brzezinski called the
‘moral vacuum’ in international affairs.15 Vance affirms in his memoirs that
one of the central elements of the new American approach was:

… the harnessing of the basic values of the Founding Fathers to our

foreign policy. Historically our country had been a force for progress in
human affairs. A nation that saw itself as a ‘beacon on the hill’ for the
rest of mankind could not content itself with power politics alone.16

As Carter declared at Notre Dame, therefore, his foreign policy would be

‘based on an historical vision of America’s role … [and] … rooted in our
moral values’.17
Carter was adamant that the US should remain a central participant in
world affairs. He was not interested in withdrawing the US from its global
responsibilities; rather he would follow a policy of what Brzezinski called
‘constructive global engagement’.18 In keeping with American traditions,
though, this global involvement would not be based purely on American
self-interest but would also serve some higher purpose of humanity and
progress – ‘Our policy is designed to serve mankind,’ Carter told his audience
at Notre Dame.19 The US would encourage all nations to adopt democracy
and peaceful interaction with other states, but the US would not impose its
will on others, let alone attempt to subjugate sovereign peoples as it had in
Vietnam. Carter insisted that Americans had learned from recent experience
and would recognize and respect differences in culture and beliefs while
advocating universal principles. Upon taking office, Carter issued an address
to the people of other nations in which he assured them:

The United States will meet its obligation to help create a stable, just, and
peaceful world order. We will not seek to dominate nor dictate to others.
As we Americans have concluded one chapter in our Nation’s history and
are beginning to work on another, we have, I believe, acquired a more
mature perspective on the problems of the world. It is a perspective which
recognizes the fact that we do not have the answers to all the world’s
problems.20

Carter acknowledged that the experience in Vietnam had shown there were
limits to what the US could achieve in world affairs. It was important to
60 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Carter that Americans remember that ‘even our great Nation has its recog-
nized limits, and that we can neither answer all questions nor solve all prob-
lems’.21 Carter believed that no single nation, including the United States
and the Soviet Union, was ‘all-powerful’: ‘We’ve learned that this world, no
matter how technology has shrunk distances, is nevertheless too large and
too varied to come under the sway of either one or two superpowers.’ This
fact would not, however, be faced by the Carter administration with resig-
nation, but in a spirit of ‘increasing maturity’.22
This new maturity would allow the administration to attempt to shift the
emphasis of US foreign policy making away from the politics of superpower
relations. Carter was clear that competition with the Soviet Union would
continue in all forms necessary and would remain the central component
of US foreign policy, but it would no longer be allowed to dominate the
agenda at the expense of other priorities.23 Carter was determined to raise
awareness of the increasingly interdependent nature of global affairs and
reorient US policy accordingly. Administration officials recognized that the
world had undergone a great deal of change during the 1960s and 1970s.
Nation states in the developing world were acquiring increasingly more
important roles in world affairs. The energy crisis and the OPEC oil embargo
had demonstrated that US security interests extended beyond the Cold War
rivalry with the USSR. Decolonization had unleashed nationalist move-
ments throughout the world that did not fit neatly into a global view pred-
icated on the centrality of the geopolitical competition between East and
West. India’s testing of a nuclear device in 1974 raised questions about
nuclear proliferation among non-aligned states. The rise of transnational
organizations, global communication networks, and an increasingly inter-
dependent global economy all added to the need to develop a more com-
plex foreign policy that could accommodate these changes yet allow for
continued American leadership.24 As Carter observed: ‘It is a new world that
calls for a new American foreign policy. … We can no longer expect that the
other 150 nations will follow the dictates of the powerful, but we must
continue – confidently – our efforts to inspire, to persuade, and to lead.’25
The global interdependence approach of the Carter administration would be
in clear contrast to the Nixon–Kissinger–Ford years when US foreign policy
had, according to Carter and his advisers, been too greatly dominated by a
realpolitik approach to international relations. Carter believed that returning
to the basic American principles that gave the US its special role in human
history would help facilitate such a policy. Complex global interrelation-
ships required the US to cooperate with rather than dominate other nations.
Carter was insistent that the US should once again lead by example with a
strength ‘based not merely on the size of an arsenal but on the nobility of
ideas’.26 By joining with others to protect and promote American principles
throughout the world, Carter would revive the moral rightness of US foreign
policy. In doing so, the administration drew upon both the exemplar and
missionary strands of American exceptionalism.
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 61

President Carter’s foreign policy was organized around what he called ‘five
cardinal principles’.27 These were: first and foremost, a commitment to
human rights as the fundamental root of all policy; second, the promotion
of increased links and cooperation with other democracies; third, engaging
with the Soviet Union in a joint effort to limit and then reduce their arse-
nals of strategic arms; fourth, to seek a lasting peace in the Middle East; and
fifth, to address the threat of nuclear proliferation. The following analysis
will concentrate first on the human rights element of Carter’s foreign
policy, as it was here that his attempts to restore America’s moral compass
were most pronounced.

Human rights

Carter was determined that human rights would provide the linchpin of his
foreign policy. In Presidential Directive NSC-30, Carter declared:

It shall be a major objective of US foreign policy to promote the obser-

vance of human rights throughout the world. The policy shall be applied
globally, but with due consideration to the cultural, political and histor-
ical characteristics of each individual nation, and to the significance of
US relations with the nation in question.28

Human rights were placed at the centre of Carter’s foreign policy because he
believed them to be the very essence of the American beliefs system. Carter
accepted that from its conception the US had been dedicated to the princi-
ple that all people on earth had a natural right to lead lives based on free-
dom and equality of opportunity. To deny human rights a central place in
US foreign policy making should be unthinkable, he believed, yet much of
the floundering in recent years stemmed from the lack of concern exhibited
for such rights. Carter believed ‘the human rights effort … is a position that
is compatible with the character of the American people’.29 The policy was
at the centre of his attempts to revive the moral core of US foreign policy by
rededicating it to traditional American principles:

We’ve been filled with the words of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, and others – that all men are
created equal, that we are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and
that we have a government designed not to control us but to guarantee
our rights.
So, human rights is a part of the American consciousness. These kinds
of commitments that I share with all other Americans make it almost
inevitable that our country will be a leader in the world standing up for
the same principles on which our Nation was founded.30
62 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Carter was not only invoking the canon of American exceptionalism but
attempting to revive and add to that tradition in order to leave behind the
memories of Vietnam and Watergate. He used familiar exceptionalist
rhetoric, on various occasions referring to his human rights policy as a
‘beacon light’ that would again ‘make our people proud and say we stand
for something’.31 This ‘beacon light’ would shine across the globe, Carter
claimed, not only making Americans feel better about themselves, but also
providing ‘a rallying point for us in all the democracies of the world’.32
It was not only at the level of public rhetoric but also privately that tra-
ditional American principles were recognized as being the primary reason
for pursuing a human rights policy. Presidential Review Memorandum NSC-28
on Human Rights (PRM 28), drafted in July 1977, concludes that pursuing
the overall objective of the human rights policy: ‘helps fulfill a moral oblig-
ation that we have incurred by virtue of our heritage and values.’ This was
listed first among several ‘sound reasons, based in national interest as well
as our moral tradition and legal obligation, for encouraging an increase in
the respect that governments accord to human rights’. The promotion of
human rights would encourage widespread domestic approval for Carter’s
foreign policy from both the Congress, where human rights had already
become a central issue, and the public ‘by permitting the moral and ethical
values of our people to be reflected in that policy’. PRM 28 stated that adopt-
ing a firm human rights policy would also strengthen the rule of law and
respect for international agreements such as the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights; promote the ‘fundamental long-term American interest’ of
seeing governments throughout the world base their political and social sys-
tems on ‘individual freedom and dignity’ rather than totalitarianism; and
play a central role in the ‘philosophical debate’ with the Soviet Union over
the best way of organizing human society.33 For Brzezinski, the human
rights policy was the most effective method of balancing power with prin-
ciple in foreign policy. It would meet the requirements of the nation’s prin-
ciples while also advancing American national interests. Emphasizing
human rights would illustrate to emerging Third World nations that
American-style democracy was a more attractive and beneficial system than
those offered by America’s adversaries. ‘The best way to answer the Soviets’
ideological challenge’, Brzezinski writes in his memoirs, ‘would be to com-
mit the United States to a concept which reflected America’s very essence.’
This essence, according to Brzezinski, is ‘personal freedom and individual
liberty’.34
Precisely how this essence would be transformed into an actual policy was
laid out in the subsequent Presidential Directive NSC-30. This document
stipulated that the policy’s objectives were to ‘reduce worldwide govern-
mental violations of the integrity of the person; … to enhance civil and
political liberties; … [and] to promote basic economic and social rights’.35
Despite concerns that establishing priorities would diminish the perceived
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 63

importance of the other rights outlined, Carter decided to focus the greatest
attention on ‘governmental violations of the integrity of the person’. He was
determined to use all available diplomatic tools to further these objectives,
including direct diplomatic pressure; joint ventures with international
organizations such as UN agencies, non-governmental organizations,
and allied foreign governments; along with official public statements and
symbolic acts. Preferential treatment in terms of economic and political
benefits would be afforded governments with good or improving human
rights records, while financial assistance and other aid would be denied
governments with poor or deteriorating records.36
Nonetheless, although the human rights effort would affect all areas of
foreign policy, the Carter administration would be careful not to let it
infringe upon the national interest. Vance believed it was imperative for the
policy to be ‘flexible and pragmatic in dealing with specific cases that might
affect our national security, and that we had to avoid rigidity’.37 Carter
agreed that Americans could not ‘conduct our foreign policy by rigid moral
maxims’.38 As PRM 28 stated: ‘There are clearly other major objectives of US
foreign policy that are of equal – and in some situations greater – importance.’
Fundamentally, the human rights objective could not be allowed to obstruct
the commitment to ‘protect and advance US national security’. Specifically,
the administration would not permit questions of human rights to com-
promise efforts to limit strategic arms; to preserve the strength and unity of
NATO; to seek peace in the Middle East; to normalize relations with China;
or to control the spread of nuclear weapons. It was fully acknowledged
among Carter and his advisers that: ‘There will clearly be situations in which
efforts to achieve our human rights goals will have to be modified, delayed
or curtailed in deference to other important objectives.’ This did not mean,
however, that human rights would remain a ‘marginal objective’
as it had in earlier administrations. On the contrary: ‘Even when other
objectives outweigh the human rights factor, our policies should, neverthe-
less, be implemented in a manner that promotes human rights to the extent
possible.’39
Even when national security or other objectives were not at stake, the
human rights policy would have to be applied delicately, not only to be
effective but also to ensure that its implementation remained consistent
with American values and principles. There did exist the possibility of a par-
ticularly problematic contradiction, however. How could a US administra-
tion demand all nation states respect human rights while also claiming it
would not attempt to impose its will on other peoples? Administration offi-
cials were aware that, particularly in the case of promoting civil and politi-
cal liberties, there was a definite ‘need … for caution to avoid giving our
policy a parochial cast that appears to export American-style democracy’.
The authors of PRM 28 state categorically: ‘we do not seek to change gov-
ernments [or] remake societies. Our experience in Vietnam and elsewhere
64 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

have taught us the limits of our power to influence the internal workings of
other nations.’40 The President reiterated this point in December 1977: ‘We
have no wish to tell other nations what political or social systems they
should have.’41 The administration acknowledged that due consideration
would have to be given to cultural differences when applying the human
rights policy. For example, ‘in many societies departures from generally rec-
ognized norms of human rights may be dictated by adherence to age-old
social and religious traditions.’ Failure to respect such cultural differences
could seriously undermine the effectiveness and legitimacy of the human
rights policy. The administration would have to ‘constantly reassess our own
standards to ensure that we are not confusing truly objectionable conduct
with unfamiliar traditional patterns of relationship or conduct’.42
Perhaps more fundamental than the potential to clash with cultural
norms was the contradiction of pursuing human rights through punishing
the domestic functions of sovereign foreign nations. This contradiction was
certainly not lost on the Soviet authorities, who claimed that what they did
within their own borders was of no concern to the United States. The
Carter administration had no right, according to the Kremlin, to impose its
view of human rights on the Soviet government, and thereby criticize
the internal policies of a sovereign state. In a letter written to Carter at the
time of his inauguration, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had commented
that both governments should continue their policies of ‘noninterference in
the internal affairs of the other side’.43 Both privately and publicly, Carter
countered by reminding the Soviets that they were signatories to the UN
Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Final Act of
the Helsinki agreements on security and cooperation in Europe; therefore,
the US had the right to demand that the Soviet Union live up to its
commitments.44 Nonetheless, the administration went to great lengths to
insist that the human rights policy would not interfere with attempts to fur-
ther détente and achieve the second treaty on strategic arms limitations
(SALT II). Carter saw ‘no relationship’ between human rights and the SALT
negotiations.45
The limits of American power to advance global human rights were rec-
ognized in private policy discussions. It was acknowledged in PRM 28 that
‘our expectations must be realistic’ and that the administration ‘must con-
centrate on encouraging the maximum possible evolutionary improve-
ment’.46 The timeframe for the fulfilment of human rights objectives was
essentially unending, with expectations for visible improvements varying
from country to country. Carter and his advisers believed, though, that the
policy should not be regarded as a failure if changes came only very slowly
or unevenly. Carter claimed to ‘understand fully the limits of moral suasion.
We have no illusion that changes will come easily or soon’.47 What was
needed was a ‘slow, careful, methodical but persistent expression of our
concerns about human rights violations’.48
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 65

The human rights policy was, nonetheless, heavily criticized. There were
objections that the administration failed to effectively use economic sanc-
tions or pressure to protect human rights abroad. The administration did
abstain or vote against various loan proposals in international financial
institutions on the grounds of human rights abuses, but Carter’s delegations
did not pressure their voting partners to follow suit and in each case the
loans were approved. As David Forsythe argues, the administration could,
therefore, ‘go on record as voting a concern for human rights without really
interfering with international financial institutions’ programs’.49 The
administration also opposed comprehensive economic embargoes on
nations such as Uganda and South Africa which it criticized for human
rights abuses, and ‘most-favored nation’ status was extended to China and
Hungary despite their poor human rights records.50
Many of the results of the human rights policy were also relatively intan-
gible and, consequently, success was difficult to gauge. A Congressional
Research Service study in 1981 found the policy had ‘mitigated brutality
only at the margins’.51 Both supporters and opponents of the policy accused
the administration of inconsistency. Carter took a case-by-case approach
which meant that human rights abuses appeared to go unchecked in many
parts of the world. In some cases there were fears that taking a strong moral
stance against another country’s internal behaviour would actually cause
that government to become more rather than less repressive in order to quell
disquiet and opposition strengthened by the promise of American support.
Criticisms from the political right were particularly harsh. Jeane
Kirkpatrick, Georgetown University political scientist and member of the
conservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote a searing indictment of
Carter’s foreign policy that received widespread attention. She accused the
administration of applying ‘double standards’ in its human rights policy in
a manner that was a ‘wholesale contradiction of its own principles’.
Kirkpatrick found particular fault in Carter’s criticisms of governments
friendly to the US (even though they were right-wing dictatorships) and his
apparent leniency towards others that should be considered unfriendly or
enemies.52 Joshua Muravchik has also condemned Carter because he ‘relent-
lessly debased’ the notion of human rights by ‘applying it to America’s allies
to whom no knowledgeable person, of whatever political stripe, would find
it applicable’.53 That Muravchik includes Somoza’s Nicaragua and the Shah’s
Iran among these allies may suggest otherwise but such criticisms of double
standards were widespread. Despite the criticisms of Kirkpatrick and others,
the Carter administration did ignore or downgrade concerns about human
rights to give substantial aid and support to US-friendly dictatorships in
Zaire, Indonesia and elsewhere. These inconsistencies were criticized by the
political left which also aired disquiet over the welcoming to the White
House of leaders such as President Ceau˛sescu of Romania and Deng
Xiaoping of China despite the human rights abuses in their countries.54
66 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

At best, then, the human rights policy should be considered problematic,

at worst a failure. The question of whether it helped to restore a moral centre
to foreign policy and contributed to a renewed confidence and belief in the
exceptional US role in the world will be further examined at the end of this
chapter. It is also necessary, though, to explore whether adopting such a
policy was based on a genuine dedication to basic American cultural beliefs
or whether it was a cynical, manipulative tactic to win election to the White
House and then maintain public approval.
The archival record shows that Carter’s advisers did create strategies for
securing public and Congressional approval for the administration’s foreign
policy. In a memo to the President in June 1977, Chief of Staff Hamilton
Jordan argued that: ‘a comprehensive and well coordinated domestic polit-
ical strategy [will be required] if our policies are to gain the understanding
and support of the American people and the Congress.’ The public, Jordan
observed, had a limited understanding of most foreign policy issues. The
administration, therefore, would have the task of explaining the complexi-
ties of the many challenges the US faced abroad through a coordinated
public education programme. This should not be considered as entirely a
hindrance, however, as it ‘provides us an opportunity to present these issues
to the public in a politically advantageous way’. Taking the initiative on
complex foreign policy issues would, according to Jordan, be ‘critical to the
political success of these policies’. Finally, once foreign policy goals had been
established it would be crucial that specific ‘political strategies in support of
those goals be developed and implemented’.55
It should not be surprising that such recommendations were made or that
such strategies existed. All organizations, political or otherwise, are likely to
be more effective in fulfilling their goals if they follow coordinated strate-
gies. Jordan was obviously aware, though, that such suggestions within the
administration could be regarded as cynical and manipulative, given
Carter’s public assurances that his presidency would be as open and honest
as possible. Jordan reassured the President that due to the ‘highly sensitive
subject matter’ he had typed this confidential ‘eyes only’ memo himself and
that the only other copy was locked away in his office safe.56 The fact that
strategies for securing public and political support existed does not mean,
however, that Carter’s foreign policy style was adopted purely because it
was considered to be politically appealing. It was noted earlier that one of
the officially recognized advantages of adopting the human rights policy
was that it would encourage widespread domestic approval from both the
Congress and the public, because it reflected popular moral and ethical val-
ues. While Carter recognized the political value of basing his foreign policy
on traditional American values and principles, however, he was also philo-
sophically committed to those values. In his autobiography, Why Not The
Best?, written in 1975, Carter had espoused his beliefs on the appropriate
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 67

basis for policy making:

A nation’s domestic and foreign policies actions should be derived from

the same standards of ethics, honesty, and morality which are character-
istic of the individual citizens of the nation. The people of this country
are inherently unselfish, open, honest, decent, competent, and compas-
sionate. Our government should be the same, in all its actions and
attitudes.57

He concluded: ‘There is no legitimate reason why government should not

represent the highest possible common ideals and characteristics of the peo-
ple who form and support it.’58 Those who worked closely with Carter in his
administration confirm that he truly believed in these values and principles
and the need to restore the moral fibre to all national and international
US policy.
Vance describes Carter as an ‘obviously highly intelligent’ man who
had ‘firm principles’ and who ‘grasped the necessity of basing his leadership
and policies on the support and common sense of the American people’.59
Rick Hertzberg, who became the president’s chief speechwriter in May 1979,
claims that: ‘Carter did not have a political ideology. He had a set of moral
precepts, he had a moral ideology.’60 Brzezinski has noted well the complex
nature of Carter’s character:

He deeply believed in human rights and that commitment remained

constant during his Administration. At the same time, he sensed, I think,
that the issue was an appealing one, for it drew a sharp contrast between
himself and the policies of Nixon and Kissinger.61

This commitment to human rights, Brzezinski suggests, reflected Carter’s

religious beliefs. Brzezinski had wondered whether Carter’s ‘proclaimed
religious convictions were real or simply politically expedient’ as he was
‘shrewd’ and ‘rather deliberate’. He soon became convinced, however, that
Carter did have a ‘deep religiosity’ that made him a ‘man of genuine con-
viction’ with a ‘genuine dedication to principle’. Brzezinski argues that:
‘Carter’s personal philosophy was the point of departure for the foreign
policy priorities of the new Administration.’ The new President had a ‘deter-
mination to make US foreign policy more humane and moral’. Brzezinski
was convinced that Carter ‘genuinely believed that as President he could
shape a more decent world’.62
What appealed most to Brzezinski about Carter, though, was that he
‘would be reasonably tough and realistic in foreign policy … [while] … being
guided by certain basic principles’.63 This mirrored Brzezinski’s own belief
that ‘power should be a means for attaining morally desirable ends’.
68 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Although Brzezinski admits he placed greater emphasis than the president

on power, he shared Carter’s belief that the ‘philosophical assumptions’
upon which the US had been founded were ‘America’s strength’.64 Vance has
also noted that, at least until he resigned in 1980, he ‘agreed philosophi-
cally’ with Carter about how the US should approach foreign policy.65
It is clear that Carter was genuinely committed to fundamental values and
principles upon which he believed US foreign policy must be based, and that
his closest advisers agreed with him. He did, however, recognize that strate-
gic, economic, political, and ideological concerns were of an equal and
sometimes greater concern, but each of these were in turn informed by
the values and principles that Americans hold dear. As he explains in his
memoirs:
I was familiar with the widely accepted arguments that we had to choose
between idealism and realism, or between morality and the exertion of
power; but I rejected those claims. To me, the demonstration of American
idealism was a practical and realistic approach to foreign affairs, and
moral principles were the best foundation for the exertion of American
power and influence.66
To a great extent, then, Jimmy Carter embraced the belief in American
exceptionalism. He believed the US was the ‘greatest nation on earth’ and
that it was the nation best qualified to help the rest of the world conform
to universal standards of basic natural rights, both by example and by peace-
ful, benign intervention. But how successful was Carter in pursuing a for-
eign policy that was consistent with traditional American values? And did
he succeed in reviving American self-confidence in the power, prestige, and
special destiny of their nation?

The Panama Canal Treaties

Carter believed the signing of the Panama Canal Treaties on September 7,

1977 reflected the US dedication to the rights of self-government and the
desire not to subjugate other peoples. Although public opinion polls and
congressional will opposed relinquishing control of the Canal, Carter
entered office determined to bring fourteen years of fruitless negotiation to
an end. He sought to rectify what he regarded as the injustice of the 1903
treaty which had granted the US in perpetuity rights to the Canal Zone in
ways the Panamanians believed impinged on their sovereignty.67 Carter
believed the issue of the Panama Canal had become ‘a litmus test through-
out the world, indicating how the United States, as a superpower, would
treat a small and relatively defenseless nation’.68 An internal White House
memo agreed that: ‘Failure to act on the new treaties would make our
rhetoric sound hollow, and would severely damage a central part of the
Carter Administration’s foreign policy.’69
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 69

The agreements the Carter administration reached with the Panamanian

government of General Omar Torrijos established joint control of the Canal
Zone, with Panama gradually acquiring complete control by 2000. Carter
believed he had demonstrated that his dedication to principle would not
undermine US national interests. The administration ensured through nego-
tiation that the US would always have access to the canal and could not be
held to ransom by Panama over access rights. Had Carter not acted, he
believed, the Panamanians might have seized the canal by force, thus draw-
ing the US into a potentially costly conflict in order to maintain the right
to use it.70
Carter had to overcome considerable public and congressional opposition
to the treaties in order to secure their ratification. Opinion polls showed the
most common objection to be that the US should not ‘give away our canal’.
With his sights firmly set on the White House, former California governor
Ronald Reagan gave the rallying cry: ‘We bought it, we paid for it, it’s ours,
and we aren’t going to give it away to some tinhorn dictator!’71 The earliest
administration analysis made clear, however, that the public was consider-
ably more willing to support the new treaties once their content was fully
known.72 The administration undertook a sustained campaign to raise pub-
lic awareness and support for the treaties. Support grew dramatically when
people understood that there would not be negative implications for
American national security, particularly when it became clear that the US
retained the right to intervene militarily to protect the canal in the future.73
Following one of the longest and most intensive debates ever conducted on
a treaty, the Senate finally authorized ratification of the two Panama Canal
Treaties on March 16 and April 18, 1978, both by a vote of 68 to 32, just one
vote above the required two-thirds majority, with all 100 senators voting.
Carter’s success in winning Senate support for ratification had come at
some political cost. Many of those senators who had voted for the treaties
failed to retain their seats at their next election and the administration was
criticized for using up political clout it could have utilized for other, perhaps
more important issues.74 Nevertheless, ratification had proved that, despite
his lack of Washington experience, Carter was capable of rallying public
opinion and forming coalitions in the Congress. He had proved effective in
tackling and resolving a contentious foreign policy issue. Above all for
Carter, the US had ‘proven our commitment to freedom and human
rights … [and demonstrated] that, in a showdown, a great democracy will
practice what it preaches’.75 As he declared at the signing ceremony, the
treaties ‘mark the commitment of the United States to the belief that fair-
ness, and not force, should lie at the heart of our dealings with the nations
of the world’.76
Although the signing and ratification of the Panama Canal Treaties was a
great foreign policy success it did not herald the beginning of a hoped-
for new era of benign, non-colonial and non-paternalistic relationships
70 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

between the US and developing countries. Carter had hoped that the treaties
would earn the administration enough goodwill in Latin America for other
long-term and developing problems to be resolved. He also believed the
region could become a showcase for the human rights focus of his foreign
policy. Yet despite Carter’s efforts, human rights violations were not reduced
in the region, relations with Cuba were not normalized, and in Nicaragua
and El Salvador renewed Cold War fears saw the administration put in
place policies that supported anti-communist forces at the expense of
human rights.77

China, Cambodia and the Middle East

Carter’s other main foreign policy successes came in diplomatic relations

with China and the Middle East. Both successes can be regarded as examples
of Carter’s preference for cooperation rather than confrontation in foreign
policy. On December 15, 1978, Carter announced a joint US–Chinese com-
muniqué stating that diplomatic relations between the two countries would
be normalized on January 1, 1979. By giving full diplomatic recognition to
the People’s Republic of China, Carter was building on the groundwork laid
by President Nixon. He shared some of the strategic concerns that had moti-
vated his predecessor, but Carter also saw normalization as being consistent
with his view that the US should seek peaceful, cooperative relations with
all nations and establish a foreign policy agenda that was not dominated by
US–Soviet relations.78 Yet as PRM 28 had suggested would be necessary,
normal relations with China had been won at the expense of human rights
considerations. Several critics of the decision deplored what they called
the American abandonment of its traditional allies on Taiwan. The improve-
ment of human rights in the People’s Republic had also not been a
requirement of the normalization agreement. Indeed, the administration
attempted to deflect criticisms that not enough pressure was being placed
on the Chinese to improve their human rights record. In a letter to House
Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill, for example, Carter emphasized: ‘We have
recently had discussions with senior Chinese officials and firmly believe that
Chinese statements and the marked increase in emigration reflect a policy
of the Government of China favoring freer emigration.’79
In 1979, it became clearer still that the Carter administration valued the
strategic relationship with China more than it valued a consistent human
rights policy. In late December 1978, Vietnamese forces invaded Cambodia
to depose the Khmer Rouge government led by Pol Pot. The Carter admin-
istration had characterized Pol Pot’s regime as ‘the worst violator of human
rights in the world today’.80 Yet the administration shared the Chinese
perspective on the Vietnamese action regarding it, in Brzezinski’s words, as
‘a Soviet-sponsored aggression designed to strengthen Vietnam as a base for
Soviet operations in Southeast Asia’. Carter and Brzezinski did not raise
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 71

objections when Deng Xiaoping informed them that China would teach the
Vietnamese a lesson with a limited invasion of Vietnam. The subsequent
action met with only mild American condemnation as the administration
adopted what Brzezinski called ‘a slight tilt in favor of the Chinese’.81 This
‘slight tilt’ saw the US refuse to recognize the new Cambodian government
installed by the Vietnamese. The Carter administration then voted in favour
of the Khmer Rouge retaining Cambodia’s seat at the UN and encouraged
China and Thailand to provide the remnants of Pol Pot’s Democratic
Kampuchean regime (DK) with aid to fight against the Vietnamese occupa-
tion. As Brzezinski said: ‘I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I
encouraged the Thai to help the D.K. The question was how to help the
Cambodian people. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support
him but China could.’82 The importance of the strategic relationship with
China clearly outweighed human rights considerations as the Carter admin-
istration authorized indirect support to Pol Pot’s forces even as it followed
the example of the Ford administration by admitting into the US thousands
more refugees from Southeast Asia.
Carter’s tireless pursuit of peace in the Middle East also raised questions
about consistency in the human rights policy. Carter’s part in negotiating
peace between Israel and Egypt and his contributions towards a compre-
hensive Middle East peace settlement are often remembered as the greatest
achievements of his administration. For Carter, peace between Egypt and
Israel became something of a personal crusade. Although he knew little
about the area before becoming President, he soon developed an unwaver-
ing belief that the US had an invaluable role to play in brokering peace in
the region. There were clear strategic, economic and political reasons for the
US to seek peace in the Middle East, not least the concerns over oil supplies
and the American relationship with Israel. Throughout the negotiations,
however, Carter and his team insisted that they were negotiating for the sake
of peace itself rather than any specific US interests. Carter’s personal inter-
ventions did bring about agreements at the unprecedented Camp David
talks in September 1978 that led to a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel
the following March.83
The greatest dilemma of the Middle East peace process, however, was the
Palestinian issue. Carter recognized that his human rights focus required the
administration to seek a positive solution to the plight of the hundreds of
thousands of Palestinian refugees from Israel and the territories it had occu-
pied. Carter regarded the ‘continued deprivation of Palestinian rights’ as
being ‘contrary to the basic moral and ethical principles’ of the US. In his
opinion, it was ‘imperative that the United States work to obtain for these
people the right to vote, the right to assemble and to debate issues that
affected their lives, the right to own property without fear of it being con-
fiscated and the right to be free of military rule’.84 The strategic and politi-
cal relationship with Israel, however, also demanded that the US continue
72 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

its commitment not to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization

(PLO) until the organization renounced its insistence that Israel be destroyed.
Since the PLO was recognized by the majority of nations as the legitimate
representative of the Palestinian people, its exclusion from the peace process
undermined efforts to resolve the Palestinian issue, despite the endeavours
of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The Israeli Prime Minister Menachem
Begin categorically opposed the establishment of a Palestinian state and
fought tenaciously against the Palestinians being provided with too great a
degree of self-determination. In his determination to secure peace between
Israel and Egypt, Carter allowed for two documents to emerge from Camp
David: one that provided the framework for an Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty
and the other that established guidelines for dealing with the Palestinian
issue. While the first document led to a formal peace, progress was slower
on the second document as Israel continued its occupation of the West
Bank. As Gaddis Smith concludes, Carter ‘left it up to subordinates to con-
tinue unproductive negotiations over the status of the Palestinians’.85 Camp
David continues to be widely regarded as one of Carter’s greatest
triumphs. Yet the administration had failed in its own objective of securing
a solution to the Palestianian problem. Carter’s human rights policy had
again been superseded, this time by the strategic and political benefits of
securing peace between Egypt and Israel.

The crisis of confidence

By June 1979, it was becoming increasingly obvious to Carter’s advisers that

public confidence in the American way of life had not been revived despite
the administration’s best efforts. The popularity of Carter’s human rights
policy and public support for his foreign policy successes over the Panama
Canal, the Middle East and China seemed to have had little positive effect
on the apparent mood of the country. The psychological wounds left by
Vietnam, Watergate and the other traumas of the late 1960s and early 1970s
had not been healed. Indeed, Carter’s public opinion specialist Patrick
Caddell presented the president with alarming poll summaries which,
according to Caddell, indicated ‘a rapid disintegration of optimism and effi-
cacy in the country’. Caddell observed that levels of pessimism about the
future of the nation and the effectiveness and trustworthiness of govern-
ment were considerably higher than they had been even at the apex of the
Watergate scandal and the defeat in Vietnam.86 Public confidence had ebbed
away further as the worsening energy crisis caused rising fuel prices and long
queues at gasoline stations. The energy crisis was accompanied by increased
inflation and unemployment as the country fell into a period of so-called
‘stagflation’. The nation’s independent truckers also went on a crippling
strike. Caddell believed what he called an ‘increasing malaise’ in the nation
had not been caused by these recent developments, but that a profound
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 73

long-term pessimism, rooted in the Vietnam–Watergate trauma, had been

deepened during the Carter presidency.87
A year earlier Anthony Lake had recommended that the president use his
commencement speech to the graduates of the US Naval Academy in
Annapolis to ‘address the anxiety among Americans that we have lost our
preeminent position in the world – to speak to the crisis of national confi-
dence’.88 On that occasion Vance’s advice was followed instead and the pres-
ident’s speech focused on the nature of US–Soviet relations.89 By the time
Carter finally addressed the crisis the following year, as Caddell’s analysis
demonstrated, it had become even more acute. On July 5, 1979, Carter was
scheduled to make his fifth national address on the urgency of tackling the
nation’s energy problems, a task he had frequently characterized as the
‘moral equivalent of war’.90 The day before he was due to speak, Carter
abruptly cancelled the speech. He decided instead to spend what amounted
to ten days at Camp David meeting over a hundred and fifty Americans rep-
resenting diverse groups from throughout society. He sought advice and
insights on the state of the nation and what needed to be done to raise the
public mood and improve American life. Finally, on July 15, Carter emerged
with what he considers one of the best and most important speeches of his
presidency.
In his memoirs, Carter writes that Caddell’s reading of the opinion polls
caused him to cancel his original energy speech. The archival record reveals,
however, that Carter’s speechwriting staff were also firmly opposed to the
address on energy. On June 29, 1979, in an urgent memo sent to the presi-
dent’s assistant for communications Jerry Rafshoon and chief speechwriter
Rick Hertzberg, the president’s main speechwriters warned that ‘the mood
of the country is grim’. They stated emphatically: ‘We strongly advise
against another televised energy speech.’ The public wanted action, not
more words. Any new speech on energy had to abandon the themes of the
last two years and offer a fresh approach that must be ‘both specific and
visionary’. Energy did need addressing, but only once it was clear what the
administration was going to do to solve the crisis. Whenever the next energy
speech was delivered, the speechwriters cautioned, it ‘may be our last chance
to reach the American people’.91
On July 15, 1979, Carter did reach out to the American people with his
much-anticipated address to the nation on ‘Energy and National Goals’,
watched on television by sixty-five million people – double the audience his
most recent speeches had attracted.92 Carter had always dedicated himself
to being frank and honest in public life. He now felt it was imperative to
give an honest account of what he considered the ‘moral and spiritual cri-
sis’ that had gripped the nation. He declared that the US and its people were
threatened by ‘a crisis of confidence’. This fundamental problem was greater
than any other currently faced by the nation: ‘It is a crisis that strikes at the
very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in
74 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of
unity of purpose for our Nation.’ This confidence was at the very root of
what it was to be an American. Confidence in American values and princi-
ples, in progress and the promise of a better future, was an essential element
of all Americans’ personal and national make-up. Carter reminded
Americans that this was not a myth but a cultural reality:

The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some
romantic dream or proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the
Fourth of July. It is the idea which founded our Nation and has guided
our development as a people. … Confidence has defined our course and
has served as a link between generations.

Although he did not identify it as such, Carter was talking about the loss of
faith in the belief in American exceptionalism. The ‘shocks and tragedy’ of
recent years had gradually eroded the traditional belief in the exceptional
nature of the United States causing a ‘crisis of the American spirit’. On the
domestic front, political assassinations had seen violence undermine
democracy and Watergate had tarnished the honour of government. In for-
eign policy: ‘We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our
causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam.’ Carter admit-
ted that: ‘These wounds are still very deep. They have never been healed.’
To escape from the paralysis that held the nation, Carter proclaimed, ‘First
of all, we must face the truth and then we can change our course.’93
Patrick Caddell’s analysis had helped convince the president that admit-
ting to and describing the crisis of confidence was the best way for the
nation to finally come to terms with the detrimental effects of the experi-
ences of the previous decade and a half. Yet to adopt Caddell’s ‘apocalyptic’
approach was ‘counterproductive’, according to several of Carter’s advisers.
They did not believe such a speech would help Americans find a solution to
the crisis of confidence. As Jerry Rafshoon put it to the president, the best
way to ‘inspire confidence’ was by ‘being confident’.94 Carter, therefore, fol-
lowed the advice of his public communications team and divided his speech
into three phases. The first identified the crisis of confidence, but the sec-
ond and third emphasized the strength and hope that remained within the
US, and detailed how the energy crisis, and with it the crisis of confidence,
could be solved.
Carter told the American people they were faced with two choices. One
was to succumb to the crisis of confidence and witness the fragmentation
and demise of the nation’s social and political fabric. For Carter, though, this
was a false choice that Americans could not afford to take. He reminded his
audience that: ‘All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage,
all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common
purpose and the restoration of American values.’ Carter believed that
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 75

Americans had it within themselves to conquer the crisis of confidence. To

succeed they must ‘tap our greatest resources – America’s people, America’s
values, and America’s confidence’. Resolving the energy crisis together as a
people, Carter promised, would help Americans to revive their belief in
themselves and their future and restore faith and confidence. The American
people would succeed because hope was the one thing that was always abun-
dant in the United States. ‘We know the strength of America’, Carter said,
‘We are strong. We can regain our unity. We can regain our confidence.’
Carter was using exceptionalist rhetoric to revive the American belief in
exceptionalism from which he believed all Americans drew their strength.
He was calling upon Americans to ‘commit ourselves to a rebirth of the
American spirit. Working together with our common faith we cannot fail’.95
The initial reaction to the speech and Carter’s follow-up addresses and
question-and-answer sessions was on the whole very positive. When he had
cancelled his original speech and retreated to Camp David, Carter had left
behind a bewildered Washington where rumours abounded that he was hav-
ing a mental breakdown or was about to resign. Time observed that: ‘Rarely
had a US President seemed so strikingly mired in indecision … The impres-
sion of incompetence is so prevalent that it has plunged Carter close to the
lowest poll ratings ever reached by a President.’ An ABC News–Louis Harris
poll found only 25 per cent of Americans approved of Carter’s handling of
the presidency, one point below Richard Nixon’s lowest rating prior to his
resignation.96 One week later, however, Time described Carter’s summit at
Camp David as an ‘inspirational step’.97 The American public seemed to
agree, with 61 per cent of those polled claiming the July 15 speech made
them ‘feel optimistic’. Carter’s approval rating also gained by some twelve
points.98
People seemed to be moved by and believe in the sincerity of what Carter
had said. Not everyone was convinced, however. The scholar Robert Bellah,
who had been one of Patrick Caddell’s major inspirations, called the speech
‘pathetic’ and criticized Carter for substituting ‘morale boosting’ for a ‘seri-
ous consideration of what the options are as we move into a different world’.
Bellah concluded that Carter had ‘no social vision’.99 The editors of the New
Republic admitted that Carter’s speech was ‘an effective performance … deliv-
ered with verve for a change’. However, they declared, the speech itself was
‘a farcical and insulting attempt to distract us all from the fact that our stan-
dard of living has begun to decline, and [Carter and his administration]
don’t have a clue what to do about it’. The speech, they suggested, was noth-
ing more than a ‘pop sociology stew’ filled with ‘servile flatteries’ designed
to assure Americans that ‘this crisis is no one’s fault’ and that ‘we are all
quite wonderful despite our malaise’. Carter, the New Republic concluded,
was ‘concerned only with the appearance of things’.100 In the same volume,
Ken Bode went further, concluding: ‘The Carter administration simply has
imploded, collapsed inwardly under the weight of its own incompetence.’
76 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

As a result of his crisis-of-confidence speech, Bode argued, Carter had

‘wound up immobilizing his own government, imperiling the American
dollar on the international market, and looking more than ever like a crude,
erratic, unstable amateur’.101
In the following weeks, more and more editorials reached the same con-
clusion that action rather than words were needed to solve the crises
Americans faced. Carter’s popularity rating fell again. His address became
labelled the ‘national malaise speech’ and was increasingly regarded as a
major source for the deepening of the crisis of confidence rather than a piv-
otal point in reviving Americans’ faith in their nation and its exceptional
nature. Carter did not actually use the term ‘national malaise’ in his July 15
speech. He had included the word ‘malaise’ in earlier speeches in a different
context but most analysts attribute the renaming of the speech to Carter’s
opponents, such as Senator Edward Kennedy.102 There is evidence, however,
that Carter did use the term when discussing the crisis of confidence at the
Camp David summit. As Time magazine reported: ‘Carter was serious … and
surprisingly candid about his perception of the national mood. To one group
he described it as a “malaise” of confusion, pessimism and distrust.’103
Whether or not Carter was responsible for coining the term ‘national
malaise’ it soon became a stock phrase for critics and opponents of the
administration. There was a growing sense that Carter was contributing to
rather than resolving the crisis of confidence among the American people.
As one labour leader complained: ‘The fault is his, not ours, and asking us
to say something good about America is like Gerald Ford telling us to pin on
little lapel buttons and “Whip Inflation Now”.’104 The events of the next
year and a half were to further undermine any positive rallying effects the
speech might have had on the American people’s confidence.

Hostages in Iran, Soviets in Afghanistan

On November 4, 1979, Iranian students overran the American Embassy in

Tehran, seizing 52 hostages. Less than two months later, on December 27,
the Soviet Union sent troops into neighbouring Afghanistan. These two
events would dominate Carter’s final year in office and cause the president
to reassess his attempts to balance power with principle in his foreign pol-
icy.105 In May 1980, Carter reiterated that traditional principles remained
imperative in forging a foreign policy which could cope with the crises the
US faced abroad: ‘Unchanging American ideals are relevant to this troubling
area of foreign policy and to this troubled era in which we live.’ US foreign
policy, he stated, must continue to promote American ideals while defend-
ing national interests:

[American foreign policy] must be based on the primacy of certain

moral principles – principles founded on the enhancement of human
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 77

rights – and on the preservation of an American military strength that is

second to none. This fusion of principle and power is the only way to
ensure global stability and peace while we accommodate to the inevitable
and necessary reality of global change and progress.106

As noted earlier, the struggle to balance the responsibilities of great power

status with traditional American principles in the Carter administration was
often personified by the conflicting views of Brzezinski and Vance. While
Vance encouraged Carter in his attempts to implement foreign policy that
was consistent with ideas of American exceptionalism, Brzezinski reminded
the president of the imperatives of great power relations and the utility of
threatening or using force in international affairs. This tension grew ever
stronger as the administration attempted to deal with the concurrent crises
over Iran and Afghanistan.
The administration’s attitude towards the use of force abroad was a cen-
tral element of Carter’s attempts to base his foreign policy on moral princi-
ples. As we have seen, the experience of Vietnam had raised doubts among
some Americans over the efficacy of using military force to achieve political
ends in foreign policy. Carter gave his view in July 1978: ‘I think I share the
opinion of the American public that we should not again become involved
in a military way in the internal affairs of another country unless our own
security is directly threatened.’ Carter cited Vietnam as an example that mil-
itary force had lost much of its utility in the modern age (though no doubt
the North Vietnamese army and the National Liberation Front would have
disagreed with him).107 The reluctance to use military force was prevalent
throughout most of the Executive Branch. In a speech to the Chicago
Council on Foreign Relations on May 1, 1979, Vance made his opinion clear:

In seeking to help others meet the legitimate needs of their peoples, what
are the best instruments at hand? Let me state first that the use of mili-
tary force is not, and should not be, a desirable American policy response
to the internal politics of other nations.

According to a Policy Planning Staff member interviewed by Richard

Melanson, the word ‘desirable’ was inserted as a compromise ‘between those
who wanted to simply say that the use of military force is not an appropri-
ate instrument, and those who felt that we could not rule it out in every cir-
cumstance’.108 Such an attitude dismayed Brzezinski. As he lamented in his
journal following the deployment of several thousand Cuban troops to
Ethiopia in 1978:

The Defense Department …, the JCS …, and State … – all of them to me

seem badly bitten by the Vietnam bug and as a consequence are fearful
of taking the kind of action which is necessary to convey our determina-
tion and to reassure the concerned countries in the region.109
78 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Brzezinski found Vance’s views on the application of military power partic-

ularly alarming: ‘His deep aversion to the use of force was a most significant
limitation on his stewardship in an age in which American power was being
threatened on a very broad front.’110
Carter had tended towards Vance’s opinion about the use of force but, as
the presidency progressed, Brzezinski gained increasing influence. By the
time of the so-called foreign policy ‘shocks’ of 1979 it was evident that
Carter had begun to embrace Brzezinski’s view. On December 12, 1979,
two weeks before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Carter declared:

We’ve learned the mistake of military intervention in the internal affairs

of another country when our own American security was not directly
involved. But we must understand that not every instance of the firm
application of the power of the United States is a potential Vietnam. The
consensus for national strength and international involvement, already
shaken and threatened, survived that divisive and tragic war.111

Carter’s speech was a sign that, as a result of events in Iran, his view of the
Vietnam syndrome was moving closer to that of Brzezinski’s. Carter was
attempting to send strong signals to the Iranians and potential adversaries
that the US had the will to meet any challenges to its national security.
Carter’s tough stance against the Iranian hostage-takers initially won him
a great deal of public and congressional support. In January 1980, 66 per
cent of Americans surveyed supported Carter’s handling of the crisis as ‘just
right’ and almost half agreed his strong stance had ‘increased America’s pres-
tige abroad’. Nearly four-fifths of those polled also believed the crisis had
‘unified the country’.112 As the crisis wore on, however, the public became
increasingly frustrated at their president’s inability to free the hostages. This
frustration was not helped by Carter’s decision to cancel what he considered
unnecessary trips and political appearances outside Washington until the
hostages had been released. Although he was praised at first for showing his
dedication to efforts to end the crisis, Carter’s decision to remain rooted at
the White House gave a growing impression that he was paralysed by a siege
mentality. The so-called ‘Rose Garden strategy’ gradually caused observers to
consider ‘the isolated President to be somehow out of touch with the nation
and perhaps the world’.113
The pressure mounted on Carter to take some action to free the hostages.
Against the advice of Vance, who subsequently resigned, Carter decided
to authorize an overseas military action for the only time in his administra-
tion. On April 24, 1980 an attempt to rescue the American hostages in
Tehran was launched. The rescue was aborted in disaster, however, with an
accidental collision between a helicopter and a C-130 transport plane caus-
ing the deaths of eight American soldiers at a landing stage in the Iranian
desert.114
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 79

On the morning of the operation, Brzezinski wrote confidently in his

journal: ‘If it is a success, it will give the United States a shot in the arm,
which it has badly needed for twenty years.’ Like Kissinger in the earlier
Mayaguez situation, Brzezinski believed the Iranian crisis had an importance
greater than the lives of the hostages: ‘I felt that in the end our national
honor was at stake.’115 Carter appears to have shared Brzezinski’s view. He
recognized that he and his advisers were ‘responsible for the lives and safety
of the captive Americans – and for the reputation of our military forces and
nation’.116 Much of the motivation for the rescue mission appears to have
been a perceived need to demonstrate the American resolve to use force, par-
ticularly in light of the continued presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
Such action would also challenge, in this election year, the growing sense
that Carter was weak and vacillating. Although political and strategic rea-
sons called for action, Carter and his advisers were nevertheless careful to
plan the mission and then present it to the Congress and the public in such
a way that it appeared consistent with traditional American principles and
values.
Despite Brzezinski’s distaste for the supposed lessons of Vietnam, Carter
went to great lengths to comply with the main elements of the Vietnam syn-
drome. As early in the crisis as November 10, 1979, Carter had noted in his
diary that any military action designed to free the hostages must be ‘quick,
incisive, surgical, [with] no loss of American lives, … minimal suffering of
the Iranian people themselves, … [and be] sure of success’.117 As they
embarked on the mission, administration officials believed it would avoid
drawing the US into another Vietnam-style quagmire because it had clear,
morally justifiable objectives that could be achieved swiftly using the
maximum force necessary at the lowest cost possible in lives and materiel.
When Carter revealed the failure of the mission in an address to the
nation, he emphasized that it had been a ‘humanitarian mission’.118 Carter
had little difficulty demonstrating to the American people that his reasons
for armed intervention were just, since American citizens were being held
captive ‘in clear violation of international law and the norms of civilized
conduct among nations’.119 Carter made clear that the mission was not
planned as an act of vengeance or aggression but was expressly limited to
securing the release of all hostages with the minimum loss of life and with-
out provoking further hostility.120 Brzezinski confirms that: ‘Carter was very
emphatic in insisting that every effort be made to avoid wanton
killings … [and] that we should try to limit casualties.’121 Although Carter
carefully reviewed and approved every aspect of the rescue mission, he also
made it clear to his military leaders that, unlike in Vietnam, ‘there would be
no interference from the White House while the mission was under way’.122
Great care was taken to ensure that the military would have enough forces
to fulfil the mission swiftly, effectively, with maximum success, and with
minimal casualties. Indeed, it was as a result of these considerations that the
80 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

operation was aborted once the minimum required aircraft were no longer
available.
The rescue mission planners, therefore, went to great lengths to ensure that
the operation would not draw the administration into a wider conflict that
could develop into a Vietnam-style debacle. Carter was also determined
that the action should be perceived as a well-reasoned use of force that did not
compromise the moral underpinnings of his foreign policy. Following the fail-
ure of the operation, even Brzezinski joined the president’s attempts to present
the mission as being morally acceptable. In an interview with ABC News,
Brzezinski affirmed forcefully that: ‘what the President ordered to be done was
morally right and politically justified. … We had a moral obligation to do what
we could do to help [the hostages].’123
As is usually the case when the US employs force abroad, the American
people initially rallied around the president. In the three hours following
Carter’s address to the nation on the rescue attempt, 69 per cent of the
telegrams and 83 per cent of the telephone calls received by the White
House were supportive of the president’s action.124 A Newsweek/Gallup sur-
vey found 71 per cent of the public believed ‘the president was right in
attempting to rescue the hostages by using military force’.125 The White
House also described congressional reaction as ‘surprisingly positive [and]
favorable’. Many high-ranking Democrats and Republicans expressed sup-
port for the president’s action. Several Senate offices also reported that 80–85
per cent of the calls they received from constituents were supportive.
Support also came from Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon and Republican
presidential hopeful George Bush. There were many strong objections
raised, however. Senator Gaylord Nelson denounced the mission as ‘ill-
advised’ and ‘doomed to failure’ from the outset. Representative Paul Simon
claimed defence and intelligence officials had told him months earlier that
any rescue attempt would fail, while Representative George Hansen con-
cluded the abortive mission was ‘typical of a series of blunders that not only
got us into this but continues to keep us here and continues to embarrass
us’.126 One of the most damning assessments, however, came from Time
magazine which concluded the mission was ‘a startlingly bold but tragic
gamble’ that ‘failed dismally’. According to Time:

For Carter in particular, and for the US in general, the desert debacle was
a military, diplomatic and political fiasco. A once dominant military
machine, first humbled in its agonizing standoff in Viet Nam, now
looked incapable of keeping its aircraft aloft even when no enemy knew
they were there, and even incapable of keeping them from crashing into
each other despite four months of practice for their mission.

Carter’s ‘image as inept’ had been fully restored.127 Public opinion soon
complied with this view. Carter was already polling behind his main
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 81

Republican challenger for the White House, Ronald Reagan. But even
though the president finally abandoned his ‘Rose Garden strategy’ and went
on the campaign trail, by August his popularity rating had fallen to 21 per
cent, the lowest for any president since Gallup began polling in 1936.128 The
hostage crisis and the failure to resolve it, either diplomatically or militarily,
had a profound effect upon the public’s confidence in their nation and
specifically in the Carter administration. It mattered little whether the res-
cue attempt had been morally justifiable or not, its failure only added to the
sense that Carter was incapable of resolving the crisis.
Meanwhile, Soviet troops continued to occupy Afghanistan. In January
1980, Carter stated that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was the ‘greatest
threat to peace since the Second World War’.129 The Kremlin had ordered
the invasion largely to prevent a pro-Soviet neighbour becoming an Islamic
fundamentalist state that Moscow believed would threaten regional stabil-
ity and encourage Muslim secessionist movements within the Soviet
Union.130 Whatever Moscow’s true intentions, the Carter administration
took the line that the Soviet Union was aggressively attempting to establish
a strategic position from which to threaten the West’s oil supplies from the
Middle East. Carter believed the US must adopt a tough response. In his State
of the Union speech on January 23, 1980, he proclaimed what would
become known as the Carter Doctrine:

Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to

gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on
the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will
be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.131

In the case of the invasion of Afghanistan, though, military retaliation was

not a serious consideration. The administration chose instead a series of eco-
nomic, political and cultural sanctions including the curtailment of grain
and high technology sales to the Soviet Union, a boycott of the 1980
Summer Olympics in Moscow, and instructions to the Senate to defer indef-
initely the already moribund SALT II ratification process.132 Carter’s hard
line towards the Soviets signalled an end to détente, but sanctions and con-
demnations had little effect as the Soviet Union refused to withdraw from
Afghanistan. Although initial support for Carter’s new stance towards the
Soviet Union was extremely high, as with the Iranian hostage crisis, the
longer the Soviet occupation continued the less confident the American
people became in their belief that Carter could do anything about it.
The presidential election in November 1980 coincided with the first
anniversary of the hostage-taking in Iran. Opinion polls indicated that the
public had little confidence that the hostages would be released in the fore-
seeable future. Carter’s failure to secure the hostages’ release, his inability to
change the situation in Afghanistan, combined with increasing economic
82 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

problems at home, led many Americans to view the administration, by

Carter’s own admission, as ‘impotent’ in the face of national crises.133 On
November 4, 1980, Carter failed to secure a second term as president.

Conclusions

In 1978, President Carter was asked how he hoped or intended for history
to remember him. He replied first that ‘I helped to restore to our Nation and
to its Government a sense of purpose, of idealism, of commitment and hon-
esty’. Second, in foreign affairs, he hoped for ‘peace based on strength’. This
peace would come from a ‘strong national defense capability’ coupled with
a ‘strength based on what our national character is, treating other people
fairly and with respect, with a total commitment to the enhancement of
human rights around the world and trying to lessen the tensions that have
been built up’.134 In other words, domestically and internationally Carter
sought to revive national self-confidence and resolve.
Jimmy Carter made a concerted effort to revive American faith in the tra-
ditional belief that the United States has a special role to play in human his-
tory, that theirs is an exceptional nation. In order to restore this faith, he
not only adopted exceptionalist rhetoric but also attempted to model his
nation’s policy and conduct on the values and principles that were tradi-
tionally believed to make the US exceptional. In foreign policy in particular,
Carter strove to heal the wounds of Vietnam and Watergate by returning to
first principles and restoring the nation’s moral compass. In many ways,
Carter achieved what he set out to do. Much of his foreign policy was tai-
lored to be consistent with his conception of traditional American national
character. The human rights policy in particular gave what Americans could
view as a moral centre to their dealings with foreign nations. Despite its fail-
ures and inconsistencies, the policy did have an effect on the way diplo-
matic relations were conducted with other governments and influenced the
nature of foreign aid programmes. Negotiating the Panama Canal treaties,
facilitating peace between Egypt and Israel, normalizing relations with
China, and continuing arms negotiations with the Soviet Union all demon-
strated that the US preferred its traditional role of peaceful cooperation with
other nations. In all these ways, the Carter administration could be per-
ceived as ‘treating other people fairly and with respect’.135 That diplomatic
solutions to international disputes were preferred was further proved by
Carter’s proud reflection that not a single citizen had shed blood in an act
of war during his administration (aside from those who lost their lives in the
abortive Iranian hostage rescue).
Yet as the analysis in this chapter has shown, Carter’s foreign policy was
not solely or indeed primarily driven by moral considerations. In all his
major foreign policy achievements concerning the Panama Canal, China
and the Middle East, strategic and political concerns took precedence over
 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence 83

human rights. In this regard, the Carter administration was perhaps not
as different from its predecessors as it had hoped. In addition, although the
human rights policy was popular, it was also problematic. Most Americans
agreed with the principle of human rights but beyond the abstract it was
difficult for the administration to nurture widespread understanding of
the policy. This was not helped by the results of the policy often being
intangible or difficult to gauge in the short term. The implementation of
the policy also seemed inconsistent at times and sometimes hollow, as
the US often lacked the resources or leverage to enforce changes in foreign
countries. The inconsistencies were further complicated by the variety
of interpretations within the administration of which human rights should
be given priority, for what reasons and in which contexts. Such problems
were further accentuated by bureaucratic barriers and conflicts between the
many executive departments charged with implementing elements of the
policy.
Carter’s attempts to revive a sense of national resolve in foreign policy also
had mixed results. The president proved himself capable of making bold,
decisive and ultimately successful decisions over the Panama Canal, China
and the Middle East even when public opinion was more cautious or even
opposed. Despite the charges of his opponents that he had presided over the
opening of a window of vulnerability in strategic strength, Carter actually
authorized a significant reversal of the post-Vietnam decline in US defence
spending.136 Yet in US–Soviet relations, Carter came to be perceived as weak
and naive in light of the invasion of Afghanistan. Carter seemed culpable in
enabling the Soviets to expand their influence unchallenged as he had cho-
sen to de-emphasize the importance of superpower relations and continue
détente through cooperative competition. Following the invasion, Carter
appeared ineffective in his efforts to punish the Soviets and cause them to
reverse their actions. It is doubtful that any other president could have done
anything more, however, and certainly Carter was no less effective than
Eisenhower had been in response to Soviet forces invading Hungary in 1956
or Johnson in response to the Czech crisis in 1968. Yet the image of a vacil-
lating, ineffective president persisted and was compounded, moreover, by
the Iranian hostage crisis. As the crisis wore on and on, Carter seemed paral-
ysed, hiding in the White House, unable to bring the power of the United
States to bear on a relatively weak Persian Gulf state. His general unwilling-
ness, then apparent inability, to employ effective force to secure the
hostages’ release, further added to the sense that this was a president crip-
pled by doubt and lacking the courage to break free from the debilitating
effects of Vietnam and Watergate. Carter was criticized for too readily
accepting that there were limits to American power, an acceptance that had
caused him to allegedly give away the Panama Canal and act subserviently
to the Soviet Union, China and other nations. He had been right to identify
a crisis of confidence in the nation, but there came a growing sense in the
84 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

final year of his presidency that Carter was, if not the original source of the
malaise, certainly responsible for worsening the situation.
By 1980, the American people did want to feel confident again about
themselves, their nation, their government and their future. As president,
Jimmy Carter made honest attempts to tap into traditional beliefs in order
to put the US back on a moral high ground and restore a sense of excep-
tionalism. As his presidency progressed, however, he was perceived to lack
the strength and confidence necessary to lead the US back to its supposedly
rightful place as the self-styled greatest nation on earth. By the time of the
1980 election, 83 per cent of Americans agreed that Carter was ‘a man of
high moral principles’. However, less than a third of those polled believed
that Carter was capable of translating his principles into policies that could
move the nation forward. Despite his strong personal morality, only 31 per
cent believed that Carter had ‘strong leadership qualities’.137 What the
American people wanted and needed was someone who personified strength
and confidence. To find such leadership they turned to the retired
Hollywood actor and former governor of California, Ronald Reagan.
5
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 inter-
ests. 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 prede-
cessors, to the traditional belief in American exceptionalism to which he
subscribed wholeheartedly.

Reagan and exceptionalism

Lou Cannon has observed that Reagan ‘held an innocent and unshakable
belief in the myth of American exceptionalism’.1 This was most clearly
expressed by Reagan in November 1986 when he declared that his ‘fondest
hope, my grandest dream’ for future generations of Americans was that:
‘they would always find here in America a land of hope, a light unto the
nations, a shining city on a hill.’2 Reagan was a true believer in the great-
ness of the United States and its special place in human history. Throughout
his two-term presidency, Reagan’s belief in the missionary strand of
American exceptionalism informed the way he developed, conducted and
presented his policies.

85
86 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Reagan was perhaps better suited than any other American president as a
protagonist of the belief in American exceptionalism. As noted earlier, in
order to fully believe that the US is exceptionally blessed among nations it
is necessary to forget or ignore a great deal of American social and histori-
cal reality. Throughout his life, Reagan had been accomplished at doing just
that as he developed his own view of the world and his and America’s place
within it.
Reagan’s view of reality had always been very malleable. He was adept at
telling stories to convey understanding to whatever audience he was
addressing. These stories were not necessarily true but Reagan often made
them sound as if they were. As a radio sports announcer, Reagan had quite
literally invented reality. He gave vividly detailed commentary of baseball
games taking place 300 miles away from his studio based solely on
telegraphed information about the outcome of each ball.3 Reagan became
so used to creating reality that he even convinced himself that he was
involved in events that he had not witnessed or that had never actually
taken place. He believed, for instance, that he had gone ‘off to war’ even
though his World War II military service never took him outside the US. He
would mythologize genuine stories and place himself in events he had only
ever read about or witnessed on film. Most famously, in 1983, Reagan told
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, with all sincerity, that he had been
among the first Americans to enter the Nazi concentration camps and had
filmed what he saw there.4 Two years earlier, Reagan had related how he had
seen the first secret US army films of the concentration camps in April 1945
and claimed they had left an indelible mark on his consciousness.5 For
Reagan, the experience of seeing a film could readily be transformed into
the experience of actually participating in the events depicted.
Reagan did not believe that making a distant or fictitious event part of his
personal reality was maliciously deceptive if by doing so he could give
greater resonance to a point or message he was trying to convey to an audi-
ence. As he told the audience at ceremonies celebrating 40 years of Voice of
America in 1982, Reagan believed that the truth was the truth, but there was
nothing wrong with it being ‘attractively packaged’.6 Reagan was often
accused of holding simplistic views and lacking a firm grasp of the detail of
policy and issues. Certainly at times this was true, but Reagan was also adept
at refining the presentation of complex ideas and programmes in ways that
would make them as appealing as possible to the greatest number of peo-
ple.7 It is no surprise, then, that Reagan attempted to tap into the national
consciousness by utilizing and appealing to the belief in American excep-
tionalism. This rhetorical device was made all the more powerful and effec-
tive for Reagan because he actually shared those beliefs.
Another of Reagan’s characteristics also disposed him towards the role of
true believer in exceptionalism: his optimism. Reagan exhibited an appar-
ently undying faith that being optimistic about things eventually enables
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 87

a person to transcend any problem. He had an excess of self-belief and was

convinced that the root of America’s strength lay in its people’s traditional
optimism. When this optimism is high then the United States and its peo-
ple are capable of achieving anything. Reagan would overcome problems
through motivation, believing that if something could be said repeatedly it
would become true. Each problem the US faced under Reagan, be it eco-
nomic recovery or nuclear disarmament, was to him what Wills has termed
‘a truth waiting to happen’ that could somehow be willed into existence.8
American exceptionalism is also a truth waiting to happen. Americans know
their society is not perfect but they believe wholeheartedly that it could be –
eventually. Americans repeatedly assert that theirs is the ‘greatest nation on
earth’ even if this can never be shown to be an objective truth. That it can-
not be proved is irrelevant. By believing in America’s exceptionalism,
Americans strive to make that belief a reality. President Reagan, his foreign
policy, and particularly the way it was presented to the public, cannot fully
make sense unless explored in the context of this belief in American
exceptionalism.

Reagan and the ‘national malaise’

Reagan had learned during the Great Depression that when times are hard,
Americans want to be told they have nothing to fear; they need to be
addressed with confidence, not told how bad things are. In the 1980 presi-
dential campaign, Reagan challenged what he perceived as President Carter’s
counterproductive pessimism about the power of the US and the attitude of
the American people. ‘I find no national malaise’, Reagan declared. ‘I find
nothing wrong with the American people. … all of us recognize that these
people [e.g. President Carter] who keep talking about the age of limits are
really talking about their own limitations, not America’s.’9 Ronald Reagan,
that great believer in ‘healthy-mindedness’, saw himself and a revival in
traditional American optimism as the antidote to the gloom-and-doom
merchants of post-Watergate and post-Vietnam America.10 American voters
appeared to agree with him in 1980 and again in 1984.
Not unlike Presidents Ford and Carter before him, Reagan took to the
White House calling for an ‘era of national renewal’. In his first Inaugural
Address, Reagan proclaimed: ‘It is time for us to realize that we’re too great
a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We’re not, as some would have
us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline.’ The emphasis was very much
on optimism. Americans, Reagan said, ‘have every right to dream heroic
dreams’. The crises confronting the US at home and abroad could be over-
come by nothing more than ‘our best effort and our willingness to believe
in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds’. There was
no reason why this could not be achieved, Reagan said, because after all: ‘We
are Americans.’11
88 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Reagan agreed with his predecessor that confidence was the answer to
America’s problems. But where Carter had lamented the lack of confidence
among Americans, Reagan celebrated the abundance of confidence among
the people. He assured them time and again that because of that confidence
and optimism, Americans had always been capable of greater things than
other peoples on earth and there was no reason why they should not be so
again. There were, in fact, many things that Reagan said about the strength
and potential of the US that Carter had said before him. In March 1981,
Reagan declared: ‘There is, in America, a greatness and a tremendous her-
itage of idealism which is a reservoir of strength and goodness. It is ours if
we will but tap it.’12 In his so-called ‘malaise speech’, Carter had said much
the same when he told Americans all they had to do to conquer the crisis of
confidence was to ‘tap our greatest resources – America’s people, America’s
values and America’s confidence’.13 Reagan’s advantage, though, was that
unlike Carter he did not have to acknowledge that a crisis of confidence
existed. Instead, Reagan could focus on moving on from that crisis by doing
essentially what Carter had prescribed: drawing on the strength of tradi-
tional American optimism. Reagan declared that: ‘the era of self-doubt is
over. We’ve stopped looking at our warts and rediscovered how much there
is to love in this blessed land.’14 By the time of his first State of the Union
speech on January 26, 1982, Reagan could assert that the ‘defeatism’ of a
year earlier had been replaced by a ‘New Beginning’ that ushered in the ‘era
of American renewal’ he had promised. ‘Don’t let anyone tell you,’ he said,
‘that America’s best days are behind her, that the American spirit has been
vanquished. We’ve seen it triumph too often in our lives to stop believing
in it now.’15 According to Reagan, belief and optimism were all Americans
needed to triumph over adversity. As he told a crowd at Mount Vernon,
Virginia, in February 1982: ‘The only limits [to what Americans can achieve]
are your imagination and your determination.’16
The theme of ‘forging a new beginning for America’ would be repeated
publicly throughout Reagan’s first term.17 The message was no different
behind the closed doors of the administration. On March 30, 1981, Reagan
told a group of new presidential appointees at a private breakfast meeting
that: ‘Our job is nothing less than revitalizing America. … The effort we
make in the next four years will determine whether or not America is to
remain a great Nation.’18 Although Reagan is much criticized for allowing
his advisers too much freedom to develop policy and to stage-manage his
presidency, the root ideas and style of the Reagan presidency were very
much his own. Reagan was not simply an actor playing the Great
Communicator. He was a Great Persuader, tailoring the tone and language
of his public persona to convey to the public a set of ideas about the US
and its place in the world that he had promoted on speaking circuits
for decades.19 These were ideas rooted firmly in the belief in American
exceptionalism.
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 89

Reagan’s vision of the United States and

its role in the world

Reagan’s view of the United States was one of undying pride and admira-
tion. He was ardently and unashamedly patriotic. For instance, where his
Republican predecessor Gerald Ford had attempted to play down the sym-
bolic trappings of the presidency, Reagan emphasized them. He frequently
called upon assembled groups to burst into patriotic song, as on January 27,
1981 when he enthusiastically encouraged the American hostages, freed
from Iran on the day of his inauguration, to join him in a rendition of ‘God
Bless America’.20 On many occasions, Reagan espoused his belief that the US
and the American people had been singled out by God to perform a special
role in human history: ‘I’ve always believed that this land was set aside in
an uncommon way, that a divine plan placed this great continent between
the oceans to be found by a people from every corner of the Earth who had
a special love of faith, freedom, and peace.’21
As well as expressing his own belief in the special character of the United
States, Reagan often drew upon the canon of American exceptionalism. He
evoked the spirit of the American revolution by quoting Thomas Paine in his
campaign to revive American self-confidence and the failing economy.
Americans could make their future whatever they wanted it to be, Reagan said,
so long as they remembered: ‘We have it in our power to begin the world over
again.’22 He used flattering passages from Alexis de Tocqueville to affirm the
greatness of the US, such as the Frenchman’s description of America as ‘a land
of wonders’.23 In November 1982, Reagan recalled that: ‘One of the first chal-
lenges ever given any American came from John Winthrop … “We shall be a
city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us”.’24 The rhetoric of the
United States as a city on a hill was central to much of Reagan’s vision of the
role the US should play in the world. In his first Inaugural Address, he
promised that the US ‘will again be the exemplar of freedom and a beacon of
hope for those who do not now have freedom’.25 Throughout his presidency,
Reagan spoke of the US as being a beacon to the world. It was an American
responsibility to bring ‘truth to light in a world groping in the darkness of
repression and lies’.26 Reagan and his speechwriters were encouraged to use
such language by his National Security staff. For example, in a memo suggest-
ing themes for the 1982 State of the Union address, senior staff member Henry
Nau advised the President to proclaim that the objective of his administration
was to make the US a ‘ “city on a hill,” a proud reinvigorated American society,
a bastion for the free world and a beacon for those who still seek freedom and
progress’. The American people, Nau suggested, would ‘applaud’ such goals.27
Accepting Nau’s advice was not difficult for Reagan, as he believed the US did
provide an example the rest of the world would do well to follow.
Reagan regarded the US as a benign force in the world that did not pose
a threat to anybody. As he told the UN General Assembly on June 17, 1982,
90 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Americans were ‘never the aggressors’ in the wars they fought but were a
‘force for peace’ in the world. Unlike other great nations in history and
unlike her potential adversaries in the contemporary world, Reagan claimed:
‘America has no territorial ambitions. We occupy no countries, and we have
built no walls to lock our people in. Our commitment to self-determination,
freedom, and peace is the very soul of America.’28 In a personal letter writ-
ten during his recuperation from the failed assassination attempt in 1981,
Reagan tried to convince Leonid Brezhnev that the US had nothing but
benign intentions toward the Soviet Union and the rest of the world. Reagan
denied that the US had ‘imperialistic designs’ that made it a threat to Soviet
security. He argued that at the end of the Second World War, the US could
have used its nuclear monopoly and military and industrial superiority to
dominate the world. Instead, Americans followed a different course that
Reagan claimed was ‘unique in all the history of mankind’. The US had ‘used
our power and wealth to rebuild the war-ravaged economies of the world,
including those nations who had been our enemies’. No one, Reagan con-
cluded, could seriously argue that the US ‘is guilty of imperialism or
attempts to impose it’s [sic] will on other countries by use of force’.29
Reagan believed wholeheartedly that the US had a special, historic mis-
sion to fulfil. He saw it as the noble, selfless leader of the march of human
progress towards greater freedom and democracy for all people. He denied
that this was a role Americans had sought arrogantly for themselves. ‘We
preach no manifest destiny’, he declared. Yet in almost the same breath,
Reagan claimed the US had ‘a destiny and a duty, a duty to preserve and hold
in sacred trust mankind’s age-old aspirations of peace and freedom and a
better life for generations to come’.30 According to Reagan, there was ‘no
higher mission’ for the US than to ‘build a lasting peace that enshrines lib-
erty, democracy, and dignity for individuals everywhere’.31 For Reagan, as
for so many other Americans, it was impossible to regard American insis-
tence on the adoption of free markets and democracy throughout the world
as being anything but a benevolent wish. The US, in Reagan’s view, was
merely encouraging self-determination for all peoples. Yet he dismissed the
possibility that any peoples in the world might actually choose to live under
a system that ran contrary to American ideals. As we shall see, Reagan could
not accept that the people of Nicaragua or El Salvador might prefer to live
under left-wing governments practising socialism, or at the very least be
allowed to determine their own future without any interference from for-
eign powers, including the United States. Like most purveyors of American
exceptionalism, Reagan also chose to overlook the blemishes on America’s
historical record where the US had failed to live up to its own high values
and principles. For Reagan it was an ‘undeniable truth’ that the US was a
successful experiment in human progress to which the whole world looked
for inspiration and leadership in its hopes for a free and peaceful world.32
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 91

This view of the exceptional nature of the United States and its appropriate
role in the world greatly affected Reagan’s foreign policy.

Reagan’s foreign policy

Reagan freely admitted upon taking office that his administration’s first pri-
ority was to restore the failing US economy. This task was the focus of
Reagan’s first year in office to such an extent that he did not deliver what
can be considered a major foreign policy address until May 1982. In June
1981, Reagan told a press conference: ‘I don’t necessarily believe that you
must, to have a foreign policy, stand up and make a wide declaration that
this is your foreign policy.’33
Internal disputes over the form, nature, and control of foreign and
defence policy dogged Reagan’s administration from the outset making a
mockery of Secretary of State Alexander Haig’s recommendation that the
administration should speak with a single voice on foreign policy.34 Haig
clearly believed that voice should be his own. He had been Richard Nixon’s
Chief of Staff and harboured his own presidential ambitions.35 Haig’s
volatile temperament and insistence that foreign policy making should be
primarily his domain made for a tempestuous relationship with other mem-
bers of the administration and shocked Reagan at times.36 Haig frequently
clashed with Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger who was a long-
term supporter and confidant of Reagan. He was much more of an ideologue
than Haig, ardently promoted Reagan’s vision, and disagreed with the
Secretary of State on a number of fundamental issues. Reagan was served by
no less than six National Security Advisors. The second of these, William
Clark, another close associate of Reagan’s, had been appointed Undersecretary
of State and was moved to National Security Advisor (NSA) largely to act as
a buffer between Haig and Weinberger.37
The conflict between Defense and State continued and in many ways
intensified after George P. Shultz replaced Haig in June 1982. Shultz was a
far more calm and reflective character than Haig and had worked closely
with Weinberger before, so Reagan was convinced the appointment would
bring harmony to his foreign policy team. But Shultz was a pragmatist where
Weinberger was an ideologue and they had a long history of disagreeing
with each other. As Cannon puts it, they ‘resembled an old couple who air
ancient grievances in public, oblivious to the impact their feuding has on
others’.38 They were to quarrel over many an issue in the Reagan adminis-
tration, not least, as we shall see, the appropriate application of American
military force.
Despite the disputes within the foreign policy bureaucracy and the lack of
a programmatic speech from the president, the administration did forge a
foreign policy agenda in the opening weeks of the first term. As Haig con-
firms: ‘In fact we were getting things done. In those early days, all of the
92 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

issues that have preoccupied the Administration in foreign affairs ever since
were identified.’39 The main objective of Reagan’s foreign policy was to
restore the United States’ national pride and strength. He sought to over-
come the perceived weakness of US power in world affairs, halt the appar-
ent gains being made by America’s international adversaries, and restore the
faith of the public at home and abroad in the will and ability of the United
States to lead the defence of American and Western interests. To achieve
these ends, the Reagan administration set out its goals as follows: (1) stop
apologizing for American power and begin to stand tall and speak positively
and confidently about the role of the US in the world; (2) revive the
American economy in order to give stability and security to national and
world markets; (3) return superpower relations to the centre of US foreign
policy and treat the Soviet Union in realistic terms; (4) redress the perceived
strategic imbalance through a concerted arms build-up; (5) restore faith and
pride in the US military by redefining the Vietnam War and restoring the
willingness to employ force abroad; and (6) promote US-backed democracy
as a viable alternative to Soviet-sponsored Marxist-Leninism in the develop-
ing world.
Despite dedicating most of his first year in office to his economic recov-
ery programme, Reagan did establish that the cornerstone of his foreign
policy would be to achieve peace and security for the US from a position of
strength that he believed had been lacking in recent years. It was not until
1982, though, that Reagan finally began to outline the grand scheme of his
foreign policy in public. Significantly, he did so in terms that reflected his
view of the US as a nation with a special role to play in the world. On May 9,
1982, Reagan made explicit that East–West relations lay at the centre of his
foreign policy and identified the main elements of his Soviet policy.
A month later he chose an address to the British Parliament to convey his
vision of the central purpose of US foreign policy. Reagan declared: ‘Around
the world today, the democratic revolution is gathering new strength.’ It was
the duty of the US and her allies to let one objective guide their foreign
policy: ‘to foster the infrastructure of democracy’. This was not, Reagan
believed, ‘cultural imperialism’ but was rather ‘providing the means for gen-
uine self-determination and protection for diversity’. Reagan was confident
in the result of his long term plan: ‘the march of freedom and democracy …
will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history.’ Military strength
was necessary, Reagan said, but this victory would not be won through war
but through ‘a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values
we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated’.40
The key to Reagan’s ‘crusade for freedom’41 was a faith in the enduring
power of traditional American values and principles that he believed were
shared and sought after by all the people of the world. The day after his
Westminster speech, Reagan told the West German Bundestag that he was a
great believer in the ‘moral power’ of Western civilization and its principles.
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 93

If the US and her allies stayed true to those values and allowed their policies
to be guided by their ideals, he was optimistic they could meet the Soviet
challenge and establish ‘a lasting policy that will keep the peace’.42 Reagan
reiterated this message at home in his 1983 State of the Union address. He
argued that the US had become the world’s leading nation due to the values
and freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights. These values were, Reagan said,
the ‘bedrock of our strength’. The US was now moving forward again, he
believed, because it had cast off years of cynicism to ‘rediscover’ and apply
those values as a ‘cornerstone of a comprehensive strategy for peace with
freedom’.43 One month later, Reagan again affirmed his belief that the US
had re-established itself at the forefront of international affairs by utilizing
the strength of its basic principles: ‘By wedding the timeless truths and
values Americans have always cherished to the realities of today’s world, we
have forged the beginnings of a fundamentally new direction in American
foreign policy.’44
Jimmy Carter, of course, also believed he had taken US foreign policy in
a fundamentally new direction by basing it more fully on traditional
American values and principles. How could his successor make apparently
the same claim? In earlier chapters, we have seen that the values and prin-
ciples Americans refer to as being traditionally at the root of their society are
rather amorphous. Debates continue about the precise nature of those val-
ues: what are they? what do they mean? do they amount to a coherent ide-
ology? are they mutually exclusive? do their meanings change over time and
according to circumstance? It should be no wonder, then, that they can be
interpreted in many different ways and utilized by public officials in order
to justify or achieve radically different ends. The same is true, as has been
argued throughout this book, of the belief in American exceptionalism.
Carter believed the US had lost its way and had acted immorally in the
Vietnam War and at home in the Watergate affair. It had ceased to conduct
itself in an exceptional manner. Carter called upon traditional American val-
ues and principles in an attempt to reassert morality as the central guiding
force in US foreign policy. He was convinced the US needed to measure its
actions against specific standards of morality. Reagan’s take on the matter
was rather different. Reagan believed so thoroughly that American princi-
ples of freedom and democracy are inherently moral that he could not
understand how any action in the pursuit of these goals could be conceived
as anything but moral. Any aspect of US foreign policy could, therefore, be
justified simply by declaring it as morally furthering the cause of freedom
and democracy. Carter tried to get what he considered a fallen United States
to redeem itself through conducting itself morally; an approach which
required the nation to accept certain limits to what Americans could right-
fully do. Reagan, on the other hand, denied that any redemption was nec-
essary: the United States had always been great and it always would be so
long as its people continued to believe in themselves and the inherent good
94 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

of their society. For Reagan, then, there was no reason for the United States
to limit its actions, because the US was morally superior to all other nations
so whatever it did was for the good of the world.
Self-doubt had no place in the US, according to Reagan, because
Americans were always on the side of right. So when Reagan cited John
Winthrop it was not as a reminder of the colonial settler’s warning that
Americans must live up to the high standards they set for themselves, oth-
erwise they would suffer the consternation of the world. It was to remind
Americans that their land had always been a special place that had been
founded as an example for humankind and that it was their duty ‘to hold
true to that dream of Joseph [sic] Winthrop’. The Americans of the 1980s,
Reagan declared, must ensure that future generations would say of them:
‘that we did act worthy of ourselves, that we did protect and pass on lov-
ingly that shining city on a hill.’ Such an end would be assured if Americans
were true to themselves and their heritage. They should, therefore, ‘go on
the offensive’ and ‘foster the hope of liberty throughout the world’. Reagan
was convinced that the task of the United States, because it is an exceptional
nation, was to ‘present to the world not just an America that’s militarily
strong, but an America that is morally powerful, an America that has a creed,
a cause, a vision of a future time when all peoples have the right to self-
government and personal freedom’.45

Reagan’s military build-up

While Reagan did not make a major speech detailing the full breadth of his
foreign policy during his first year in office, he did address the central ele-
ment of his defence policy.46 Reagan, Haig and Weinberger were agreed that
restoring the military strength of the US must be the number one priority
of the administration’s foreign and defence policy.47 Reagan believed, and
never tired of repeating, that a ‘decade of neglect’ in US strategic forces cou-
pled with a massive Soviet arms build-up had opened a ‘window of vulner-
ability’ in the United States’ nuclear deterrent. Reagan was far from alone in
being convinced that the US had allowed itself to fall into a weakened strate-
gic position. Stansfield Turner, director of the CIA under President Carter,
reflected the conventional wisdom: ‘in the last several years all of the best
studies have shown that the balance of strategic nuclear capabilities has
been tipping in favor of the Soviet Union.’48 The CIA’s Office of Soviet
Analysis (SOVA) provided evidence that Soviet military spending was
increasing at ‘an enormous rate’ of 4–5 per cent per year in the late 1970s
and early 1980s. By 1983, however, much to the chagrin of the Reagan
administration, SOVA admitted it had been wrong and that in fact the
increase had only been 1.3 per cent per year from 1976, that Soviet weapons
procurement had ‘remained flat’, and that there had actually been
a decrease of 40 per cent on offensive strategic weapons spending. By 1985,
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 95

SOVA was also scaling down its projections of the size of Soviet strategic
forces since actual weapons output was much lower than earlier estimates
suggested.49 Whatever the realities of Soviet strategic strength, in 1981 pub-
lic and elite opinion combined in what Lou Cannon has characterized as ‘a
consensus rare in American peacetime history [favouring] huge increases in
military spending’.50 On October 2, 1981, Reagan announced his pro-
gramme to ‘revitalize’ US strategic forces through the deployment of new
weapons including the MX missile, B-1 bombers, and cruise missiles, and
the modernization of existing forces such as Trident submarines.51
Between 1980 and 1985, defence spending increased by 53 per cent, the
largest and most rapid rise in US peacetime history.52 This increase had
begun during President Carter’s last year in office. Indeed, most of Reagan’s
arms build-up, aside from the restoration of the B-1 bomber programme, was
actually inherited from the Carter administration. But it was the Reagan
administration that was given and took the credit for restoring US strategic
strength. It was also, therefore, Reagan who prompted strong reactions from
the burgeoning peace movement in Europe, especially in Britain and West
Germany where cruise missiles were to be based, and the nuclear freeze
movement within the United States. In the Soviet Union, Reagan became
characterized as a dangerous warmonger. On June 7, 1981, the Soviet Armed
Forces newspaper, Krasnaia Zvezda (Red Star) editorialized:

The unprecedented appropriations for military purposes appear particu-

larly sinister against the background of the blasphemous and reckless
statements of the present American leaders that ‘there are more impor-
tant things than peace’ and that it is supposedly ‘possible to win’ a
nuclear war.

Following the announcement of Reagan’s strategic weapons programme,

Pravda concluded that Reagan was ‘actively preparing for such a war’.53
The commonplace caricature in the Soviet and Western European press of
Reagan as a gun-toting cowboy, his itchy finger poised over the nuclear trig-
ger, was certainly encouraged by the cavalier attitude often displayed by
Reagan and his advisers toward the possibility of fighting and indeed win-
ning a nuclear war. Reagan showed he could contemplate a limited nuclear
exchange when he told a group of news editors in October 1981: ‘I could see
where you could have the exchange of tactical weapons against troops in
the field without it bringing either one of the major powers to pushing the
button.’54 The following month, Haig suggested that a nuclear warning shot
might be part of NATO’s contingency plans in the event of Soviet aggression
in Europe. Reagan argued, rather unconvincingly, at a press conference on
November 10, 1981 that his own comments in October had been nothing
more than hypothetical musings. Alarmingly, he also admitted that he did
not know and had not been able to find out whether NATO strategy
96 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

included Haig’s warning-shot contingency.55 There is little wonder that the

arms build-up and its attendant posturing raised such widespread alarm.
The administration was not oblivious, it seems, to the unease its com-
ments on nuclear strategy were causing. A week after his fumbling perfor-
mance of November 10, Reagan addressed the National Press Club on his
nuclear weapons policy. He stated categorically that: ‘No NATO weapons,
conventional or nuclear, will ever be used in Europe except in response to
attack.’ He then argued through the rationale behind his arms build-up in
what was the beginning of a long campaign to convey to the American pub-
lic his vision of the future of American strategic policy. Reagan’s argument
was that the ultimate aim of the US was to bring peace to the world. Reagan
agreed with his advisers and pressure groups such as the Committee on the
Present Danger that the only way to achieve peace was through strength.
Reagan claimed there was ‘no higher priority’ in his mind than to achieve
substantial arms control agreements with the Soviet Union. He argued that
the only way the US could secure successful negotiations with the Soviets,
however, was from a position of strength. Therefore, Reagan considered that
correcting the strategic imbalance through a massive arms build-up was a
prerequisite for ending the arms race. He then proposed what became
known as the ‘zero option’ that would eventually form the basis of the 1987
INF Treaty: that the US would cancel its deployment of Pershing II and
ground-launched cruise missiles in Europe if the Soviet Union would dis-
mantle its SS-20, SS-4 and SS-5 missiles.56
According to critics, to consider the use of nuclear weapons was not only
immoral but also an ‘ugly embrace of barbarism’ and certainly not the exem-
plary action of a nation supposedly dedicated to peace and without the
desire for conquest or aggression.57 To follow such a policy seemed to con-
tradict Reagan’s own perception of his nation and its role in the world. Many
people are confused by the apparent turnaround in Reagan’s approach to
nuclear weapons from the aggressive sabre-rattler of his first term to dedi-
cated arms reductionist in his second term. A closer examination of the evi-
dence reveals, perhaps surprisingly, that Reagan had always abhorred the
idea of nuclear war, even in his most belligerent moments.
Reagan claims he came to office with a ‘decided prejudice’ against the pol-
icy of mutually assured destruction (MAD) which formed the core of nuclear
deterrence between the US and the Soviet Union. He believed it to be quite
literally ‘madness’ and was convinced there ‘had to be some way to remove
this threat of annihilation and give the world a greater chance of survival’.58
Following his comments about the feasibility of limited nuclear war, Reagan
frequently made clear that he in fact believed ‘a nuclear war cannot be won
and must never be fought’, whether limited or otherwise.59 To Reagan,
nuclear weapons were ‘monstrous’ and ‘inhumane’ and he had no greater
wish or priority than ‘reducing and ultimately removing the threat of
nuclear war and seeking the stability for true peace’.60 Reagan claimed he
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 97

agreed with the objectives of anti-nuclear protesters but not with their
methods. He was convinced that the Soviet Union would only agree to
negotiate reductions in strategic arms if the US was in a position of strength.
Reagan was so obsessed with eradicating the nuclear threat that he
embraced the controversial idea of developing a space-based defence system
that could provide an impenetrable shield against nuclear attack. Reagan
believed this technology, once it was shared with the Soviet Union, would
make nuclear weapons obsolete. It was an idea fraught with difficulty, not
least that almost nobody in the scientific community believed a fail-safe sys-
tem could ever be developed. Yet although Reagan was aware that deploy-
ment would be many years if not decades away, the Strategic Defense
Initiative (SDI or ‘Star Wars’ as it was dubbed by the media) became his most
treasured project. Reagan never faltered in his dedicated promotion of the
idea and its eventual feasibility, because it would fulfil his ‘deepest hope’
that ‘someday our children and our grandchildren could live in a world free
of the constant threat of nuclear war’.61
SDI, whether plausible or not, fitted perfectly within Reagan’s view of the
world and his belief in American exceptionalism. Reagan was convinced
that Americans are capable of absolutely anything so long as they believe in
themselves enough. He thought there was no problem so big that given
enough time and resources an American could not solve it. To Reagan, the
US led the world in technological and scientific progress and boasted the
foremost minds. Coupled with the pioneer spirit and the highest in human
ingenuity, anything was possible. Reagan argued there had been no weapon
in history for which a defence had not been developed eventually. The US
had given the world nuclear weapons. Reagan saw no reason why Americans
could not now invent an effective defence to make those weapons obsolete.
SDI was an inherently American idea: in Reagan’s view it would not serve
narrow self-interest but would ensure the survival of all humankind. It was
to him the ultimate action of an altruistic nation with an altruistic foreign
policy. According to Reagan, it would be a system designed not to bring
domination and conquest but, in the finest spirit of America, would guar-
antee that freedom and liberty could flourish free from the fear of extinc-
tion. That SDI lived more in Reagan’s imagination than in reality did not
really matter to him. As with so many other aspects of Reagan’s and
America’s beliefs system, it was a truth waiting to happen.
SDI did, however, have far-reaching effects beyond the research and devel-
opment laboratory. Far from assuring an end to the possibility of nuclear
war, Reagan’s scheme for a defensive shield actually heightened the threat.
The Soviet Union and other critics perceived that the US president was try-
ing to upset the strategic balance between East and West that formed the
basis of deterrence policy. If the US could deploy a system that would shield
its cities and missile silos from attack then it would no longer be deterred
from launching a first-strike against the Soviet Union. Such a possibility
98 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

might even convince the Soviet leadership to order a preemptive nuclear

strike before SDI became operational rather than being held hostage by a
strategically superior United States. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev referred
to SDI as ‘an instrument for ensuring domination’.62 Reagan, of course, did
not agree. In a handwritten letter, he assured Gorbachev ‘the truth is that
the United States has no intention of using its strategic defense program to
gain any advantage, & there is no development underway to create space-
based offensive weapons. Our goal is to eliminate any possibility of a first
strike from either side’.63 Nevertheless, the Soviet view persisted and SDI
provided a major obstacle to arms reduction negotiations and threatened to
move the arms race into defensive as well as offensive areas. It has been
argued, of course, that SDI was central to a ‘squeeze’ strategy deliberately
designed to overburden the Soviet economy and hasten the downfall of
communism.64 Such claims, however, fail to consider the extent to which
internal conditions and developments led to Soviet reforms and how the
consequences of global interdependence affected the Soviet economy. In
fact, Raymond Garthoff has argued, the longer the 1980s went on the less
worried the Soviet Union became about the threat of SDI as it became
increasingly apparent that deployment was highly unlikely. There was no
need to increase defence spending to meet a threat that did not exist.
Indeed, Soviet defence spending did remain ‘roughly constant’ between
1985 and 1988.65 If anything, any squeeze strategy that was pursued
through SDI simply had the effect of consolidating the attempts of Soviet
hardliners to resist Gorbachev’s reforms.66

Reagan and the evil empire

Another major facet of Reagan’s campaign to restore American pride and

strength was his rhetorical assault on the Soviet Union during his first term.
The president set the tone at his very first news conference on January 29,
1981. He claimed that the Soviet leadership:

have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize
is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the
right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat, in order to attain [their goal
of worldwide Communist revolution].

Americans, Reagan proclaimed, ‘operate on a different set of standards’.67

This rhetorically anti-Soviet approach was maintained by Reagan through-
out most of his first term. His efforts to rebuild American confidence in the
strength and morality of their own system would be aided by a frequent
comparison with what he regarded as the morally and spiritually (and
indeed economically) bankrupt Soviet system. Reagan described the
Soviets as cruel, inhumane, aggressive and exploitative. They were the new
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 99

imperialists who could only keep their people from fleeing their system by
building walls of concrete and barbed wire. By comparison, Reagan insisted,
Americans were lovers of freedom and individuality who respected the
rights and dignity of all humans, encouraging and helping them to live their
lives to the fullness of their potential.
Reagan’s anti-Soviet rhetoric reached its peak when he addressed the
Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando,
Florida, on March 8, 1983. Reagan famously referred to the Soviet Union as
‘the focus of evil in the modern world’. He urged his audience and all
Americans to never forget or ignore ‘the aggressive impulses of an evil
empire’ as they considered whether to support his defence build-up. No
American, he said, could afford to remove themselves ‘from the struggle
between right and wrong and good and evil’.68
Reagan concluded in his Orlando speech that the struggle between the US
and the Soviet Union would not be settled by armed conflict but by a ‘test
of moral will and strength’.69 Nevertheless, the president’s characterization
of the Soviets as an ‘evil empire’ led many in the US and Europe to fear that
war between the superpowers was becoming increasingly inevitable. Reagan,
however, repeatedly denied that this was the case. He told Henry Brandon
of the Sunday Times that all he was doing in the Orlando speech and at other
times was showing ‘a recognition and a willingness to face up to’ the differ-
ences between the US and the Soviet Union. He was simply being ‘realistic’
about the nature of the Soviets, but he continued to believe that ‘peace is
achievable’.70 Reagan refused to accept that his ‘evil empire’ speech had in
any way intensified the Cold War. He even told another group of reporters:
‘I didn’t think there were many polemics in that particular message.’71
Reagan believed he was simply ‘telling it as it is’. He felt particularly vindi-
cated after the Soviet Union shot down a South Korean civilian passenger
plane in September 1983. He told the nation: ‘I hope the Soviets’ recent
behavior will dispel any lingering doubts about what kind of regime we’re
dealing with.’72 He continued to push the point throughout 1983 and
remained convinced that ‘telling the truth about the Soviet empire’ should
never be considered ‘an act of belligerence on our part’. It was imperative,
Reagan believed, that Americans:

continue to remind the world that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant

facts is folly, that whatever the imperfections of the democratic nations,
the struggle now going on in the world is essentially the struggle between
freedom and totalitarianism, between what is right and what is wrong.73

In a December 1983 interview, Reagan yet again stated that he believed

the Soviet Union was ‘a source of evil’.74 The relentlessness of Reagan’s
Soviet rhetoric was soon to change, however. In a national address broadcast
throughout the world on January 16, 1984, Reagan signalled the beginnings
100 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

of a change of tack towards the Soviet Union. He announced: ‘I believe that

1984 finds the United States in the strongest position in years to establish a
constructive and realistic working relationship with the Soviet Union.’
Reagan proclaimed that the superpowers ‘must do more to find areas of
mutual interest and then build on them’. He proposed that the two gov-
ernments strive to reduce and then eliminate the use of force in interna-
tional disputes; to reduce nuclear and conventional weapons throughout
the world; and to establish a better working relationship based on ‘greater
cooperation and understanding’. The US would approach these tasks
through the guiding principles of ‘realism, strength, and dialog’. Reagan
admitted to having openly expressed his views on the Soviet Union but said
this was no different to the way in which the Soviet leaders expressed their
views on the Western system. Such public criticisms did not mean, however,
that ‘we can’t deal with each other’. Reagan’s new Soviet policy, then, would
be based on ‘credible deterrence, peaceful competition, and constructive
cooperation’.75 It was a turning point in the Reagan administration’s rela-
tionship with the Soviet Union that, with the coming to power of Mikhail
Gorbachev, would eventually lead to a thawing in superpower relations.
The reasons for the Reagan administration’s sudden move towards a more
conciliatory approach to the Soviet Union during his second term have been
a matter of much debate. The conventional wisdom is that the Reagan
administration was mostly reactive to the changes within the Soviet Union.
Reagan’s January 1984 speech, however, was given over a year before
Gorbachev came to power. Why, then, did Reagan himself begin to thaw the
Cold War by reversing his administration’s hardline approach to the Soviet
Union and begin to actively seek more congenial relations? In 1983, Richard
Wirthlin, Reagan’s pollster, drew the president’s attention to the fact that
growing numbers of Americans were uneasy with the ferocity of Reagan’s
denunciations of the Soviet Union. Nancy Reagan was also advising her hus-
band to tone down what she considered his dangerous, confrontational
stance towards the Soviets.76 With the 1984 presidential election campaign
beginning to get under way, it could be concluded that Reagan softened his
anti-Soviet rhetoric in an attempt to placate fears among the electorate. In
her study of Reagan’s Soviet policy reversal, however, Beth Fischer shows
that poll data indicate in fact that Reagan’s hardline policy was becoming
increasingly popular during 1983. There was no need, therefore, for Reagan
to change his Soviet policy in order to secure greater electoral support.
Alternatively, it is argued that Secretary of State Shultz, who had replaced
Haig when he resigned in June 1982, and newly appointed National Security
Advisor Robert C. McFarlane influenced the president’s decision. They did
both counsel a more conciliatory approach to Soviet relations but, as Fischer
argues, neither had enough dominance in the policy making process to force
such a sudden and sweeping change as declared in Reagan’s speech. Fischer
argues convincingly that Reagan himself took control of US–Soviet policy in
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 101

late 1983 and initiated the policy reversal. According to Fischer, Reagan’s
long-held abhorrence of nuclear weapons was primed by three events in late
1983: the Soviet shooting down of the South Korean airliner, his viewing of
the nuclear holocaust film The Day After, and a Pentagon briefing on US
nuclear war plans. With his fear of nuclear war heightened by these events,
Reagan was shocked to discover that Moscow had almost mistaken the
NATO military exercise ‘Able Archer’ in November 1983 for preparation for
an actual nuclear attack. The Soviet reaction made Reagan realize that his
hard line was perceived as threatening in Moscow and was, despite his assur-
ances to the contrary, aggravating the chances of a nuclear confrontation.
Reagan, therefore, initiated a reversal in his Soviet policy not because his
view of the Kremlin or communism had changed but because he feared that
continuing with his hardline approach would cause a nuclear war.77 If
Fischer is correct then the question remains why, if his fear of nuclear war
was so great, Reagan authorized such a massive military build-up, shunned
arms control talks, and discussed the possibilities of limited nuclear war
during the first three years of his presidency.
Reagan certainly did not confirm publicly that he was seeking improved
US–Soviet relations because he had become convinced his hardline
approach would inevitably lead to nuclear war. On the day he announced
his new Soviet policy, Reagan told the Washington Post that he did not regret
his ‘evil empire’ rhetoric. He believed ‘it was necessary for them to know
that we were looking at them realistically’. He thought the significance of
the rhetoric had ‘been overplayed and exaggerated’ and that the US was cer-
tainly not in ‘great danger’ as a result. In fact, he told the Post’s reporters, he
believed the US was now safer from war than it had been three years previ-
ously, thanks to his arms build-up and the renewed confidence of the
American people.78
In an internal document of talking points prepared within the NSC for
Robert McFarlane there is again little indication that Reagan had adopted
his new stance due to his shock that ‘Able Archer’ had almost caused a
nuclear confrontation. It is noted that the administration seeks the ‘avoid-
ance of war and reduction of existing levels of arms’ but it is also specified
that:

Despite harsh rhetoric from both sides, [the] Soviet–American relation-

ship is quite stable today and danger of war is actually lower than in the
past. There have been no near-confrontations with Moscow, similar to
Cuban Missiles Crisis, the 1973 dispute in the Mid-East or the tension
created after the invasion of Afghanistan.

The memo offers an alternative to Fischer’s thesis about why the adminis-
tration was now adopting a more conciliatory approach. It emphasizes that
the president ‘spoke from a position of improved American self-confidence.
Economic recovery in full swing, stronger cohesion, demonstrated willingness
102 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

of US to undertake defense modernization programs and to employ military

power when challenged’. The problem with détente in its later years, accord-
ing to the Reagan administration, was that the US had adopted a position
of relative weakness in its relationship with the Soviet Union. After three
years in office, the Reagan administration now perceived that it had restored
the US to a position of strength in the world from which it could again work
towards a more cooperative relationship with a Soviet Union which it no
longer regarded as holding a strategic or political advantage. Not surpris-
ingly, given how bellicose Reagan and his advisers had been of late, the
Soviet leadership was not convinced by the new American overtures. As the
NSC memo indicates, however, the negative response from Moscow worked
well from the administration’s point of view as it increased the perception
that the US was now making initiatives from a position of strength rather
than reacting to Soviet demands and threats: ‘When the Kremlin demon-
strates a willingness to join us in this search for an improved relationship,
we will be prepared to suggest specific initiatives that will contribute to more
positive ties.’79 Such evidence does not discount Fischer’s thesis on the
Soviet policy reversal but it does suggest that the administration’s percep-
tion of US power relative to the Soviet Union played an important role in
the adoption of a more conciliatory approach.
A further aspect of Reagan’s attempt to illustrate the superiority of Western,
and particularly American, values was his rather prophetic assertion that
although militarily the Soviet Union was a massive force that must be met
in kind, economically the Soviet system was on the point of collapse. Long
before it was accepted conventional wisdom, Reagan was arguing that the
‘last pages’ of communism’s ‘bizarre chapter in human history … are even
now being written’.80 Reagan was convinced that putting military strength
before the needs of its people would eventually ‘undermine the foundations
of the Soviet system’.81 He saw in the Soviet Union ‘a great revolutionary
crisis … where the demands of the economic order are conflicting directly
with those of the political order’. Reagan declared that the Soviet experi-
ment was in ‘decay’ and the ‘dimensions of this failure are astounding’. The
Soviet leadership was starving its people of food and manufactured goods to
maintain an aggressive war machine and running ‘against the tide of history
by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens’.82 It was
inevitable to Reagan that the Soviet system would fail and that, by contrast,
the benign values championed by the US would flourish to the benefit of all
humankind. Despite these realizations, though, as noted earlier there is lit-
tle if no evidence that the administration deliberately contrived a ‘squeeze’
strategy to break the Soviet Union and ‘win’ the Cold War. Indeed, if such a
strategy had been adopted surely it would have been better to keep ‘squeez-
ing’ in 1984 and after rather than negotiating and beginning to improve
relations.
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 103

Reagan and the memory of Vietnam

A further integral part of Reagan’s campaign to revive American self-confidence

was his attempt to redefine the way Americans felt about the Vietnam War and
particularly the role of America’s fighting men in that conflict. As early as his
first Inaugural Address, Reagan included Vietnam in a list of places where
American heroes had fallen to preserve the principles of their nation.83 Then
Reagan declared that Sunday April 26, 1981 would be a National Day of
Recognition for Veterans of the Vietnam Era. He acknowledged that the period
of the war had been ‘a time of trial for our Nation’. As a result, ‘full recogni-
tion of the Nation’s debt of gratitude’ to Vietnam veterans was ‘long overdue’.
Reagan made clear that: ‘No one should doubt the nobility of the effort they
made.’84 He would frequently repeat his contention that Vietnam had been
‘a noble cause’ in which Americans fought as bravely and as righteously as at
any other time in American history. The only difference in Vietnam was that
not all Americans back home supported the military’s effort and that US forces
‘were not allowed to win’.85
The rehabilitation of the Vietnam veteran and Reagan’s redefining of the
war itself reached its apex with the dedicating of the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC, on November 13, 1982. Two days
previously, on Veterans Day, Reagan stated that: ‘Nothing is more important
to the soul of America than remembering and honoring those who gave of
themselves so that we might enjoy the fruits of peace and liberty.’ In that
spirit, the ‘long overdue’ tribute of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial would be
dedicated. Reagan reinforced his belief that: ‘It’s time that Vietnam veterans
take their rightful place in our history along with other American heroes who
put their lives on the line for their country.’ Reagan admitted: ‘Certainly, mis-
takes were made … [but] the cause for which our Vietnam veterans fought was
an honorable one.’ Dedicating the Memorial, or The Wall as it soon became
known, would enable Americans to ‘put behind us the ingratitude and injus-
tice of the past’ along with the ‘divisiveness’ that Vietnam had spawned.86
Presidents Ford and Carter had each attempted to move the US forward
from the Vietnam era and heal the perceived wounds American society had
suffered during the period. As we have seen, neither of them was fully suc-
cessful. Reagan took an approach different from either of his predecessors.
In keeping with his natural optimism, Reagan succeeded to a great extent in
redefining the way most Americans felt and thought about Vietnam. In
Reagan’s view the war was not, as Carter had given the impression, a total
disaster that Americans should feel nothing but guilt about. Reagan encour-
aged Americans to believe they had acted honourably in going to the aid of
the South Vietnamese and that, had it not been for the failures and weak-
nesses of government bureaucracy, Americans would have achieved their
objectives in the war. In Reagan’s view of the events, Vietnam had not
shown that there was anything wrong with American ideals and principles.
104 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

It had merely revealed that those who controlled the federal government were
not up to the task of maintaining those principles. Reagan was able, in a sense,
to redefine the Vietnam experience as a victory. It was not a victory in polit-
ical and military terms (even though, as Reagan emphasized, US forces were
never beaten on the battlefield in Vietnam), but a victory of the American
spirit. Conveniently ignoring My Lai, Kent State, and other controversial
episodes from the era, as well as denying alternative explanations for the
American defeat, Reagan dwelt upon the personal efforts of those fighting the
war and concluded that, although the conflict was not without its mistakes,
the public could be proud of the way most Americans dedicated themselves
selflessly to the cause, as they had whenever duty called from the Revolution
onwards. Americans could put Vietnam behind them, Reagan contended, by
embracing it as a noble part of their history. After years of being shunned by
the wider society, most veterans of the war felt that largely thanks to Reagan’s
efforts they were finally accepted as courageous patriots regardless of whether
or not the war itself was justified. According to veteran and writer Robert
Timberg, Reagan was ‘a one-man welcome home parade’.87
Despite his rhetoric, however, Reagan did not lay to rest the ghosts of
Vietnam. Through his rehabilitation of the Vietnam veteran and his will-
ingness to talk about the war, Reagan did contribute to a process of coming
to terms with the Vietnam War that occupied much of American thought
and popular culture throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. But in his deter-
mination to finally put Vietnam behind Americans, Reagan offered an unre-
alistic reinterpretation of the war that diminished the importance and
significance of many of the debates over the meaning and consequences of
Vietnam and its effects on American society. As Arnold Isaacs has observed:
‘The real war in Vietnam was … more complicated and more ambiguous
than Ronald Reagan ever seemed to understand. And so was the task of
vanquishing Vietnam’s legacy.’88

Reagan and the use of force

The most enduring legacy of the Vietnam War in terms of foreign policy, of
course, is the debate over the appropriate use of American military force in
international relations. Like both the previous post-Vietnam administrations,
Reagan and his advisers found this issue to be most perplexing. Reagan was
determined to overcome the apparent limits to American action in world
affairs. In order to succeed in his efforts to restore the strength of the United
States as a superpower, he believed it was necessary to demonstrate that the US
had not lost the will to stand up for its interests and principles. He did not
want to give the impression that the US would rush to arms upon any provo-
cation but he was determined that allies and adversaries alike should under-
stand that, if necessary, the US was willing to employ force to achieve its
objectives.
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 105

Reagan made his intentions clear from the very beginning of his presi-
dency. In his first Inaugural Address he warned: ‘Our reluctance for conflict
should not be misjudged as a failure of will. When action is required to pre-
serve our national security, we will act.’89 Reagan was careful to maintain
that unlike many of its potential adversaries the US was an exceptional
nation that did not resort to war lightly. Reagan gave a typically revised
version of the historical record:

Americans resort to force only when we must. We have never been aggres-
sors. We have always struggled to defend freedom and democracy. We
have no territorial ambitions. We occupy no countries.90

This did not mean, however, that the US would no longer take up arms
against aggressors. On the contrary, so Reagan believed, the reinvigorated
United States was ready and willing to meet any challenge anywhere in the
world with force if necessary. Reagan emphasized that if any lesson had been
learned from Vietnam it was that ‘we must never again send our young men
to fight and die in conflicts that our leaders are not prepared to win’.91 To
Reagan, this last point was very clear. He believed the military had gone to
Vietnam with one arm tied behind its back and had consequently been
unable to achieve victory. In the future, Reagan was determined, whenever
the US committed force to a situation it would do so with adequate strength
and resolve to achieve its objectives. There appeared to be little disagree-
ment within the administration that this should be the case whenever force
was employed. There were, however, major differences, particularly between
the State Department and the Pentagon, over the circumstances under
which it was acceptable to use force in the first place.
Secretary of State Haig agreed with Reagan that under Ford, and especially
under Carter, ‘the fear of “another Vietnam” paralyzed the will of the US
government’.92 Haig believed the US had earned a reputation for ‘strategic
passivity’ that could not ‘be wished away by rhetoric’. The US needed to
demonstrate through ‘prudent and successful actions’ that it remained capa-
ble of defending its national security interests.93 Such actions must include
the effective threat and use of force because, as Haig told his Senate confir-
mation hearing, ‘some things are worse than war’.94 Haig believed a lesson
of Vietnam was that sufficient force must be employed with enough resolve
to ensure victory. He also believed that the use of force should be considered
as a viable option when developing policy responses to international situa-
tions. As he wrote in his 1984 memoirs: ‘If an objective is worth pursuing,
then it must be pursued with enough resources to force the issue early.’95
The Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were far more
reluctant to employ the force at their disposal. The military had been badly
damaged by its experiences in the Vietnam War. The armed services had
suffered great losses in a war that, according to the military, had been
106 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

limited by the whims and desires of bureaucrats and politicians who lacked
the will and commitment to get the job done. Military leaders were left wary
of being again placed in a position where they would be asked to sacrifice
lives and materiel for ill-defined or unpopular objectives. They were tired of
being what they regarded as the pawns in White House and State
Department games that often had bloody consequences. Many of them
believed, as did General Colin L. Powell, who would be Reagan’s National
Security Advisor during his last year in office, that in war: politicians must
set a clear set of objectives; the military should then be left to achieve those
objectives with whatever force they deem necessary; and no conflict should
be fought without assurances that the people believe the sacrifice is justified
and worthy of their support.96 In Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger,
the military found a civilian leader who shared their apprehensions about
the use of force. Weinberger claimed to have learned from Vietnam, and
indeed Korea, that objectives must be clarified before forces are committed
to a situation. He was also convinced that ‘it was a terrible mistake for
Government to commit soldiers to battle without any intention of support-
ing them sufficiently to enable them to win, and indeed without any inten-
tion to win at all’. Any conflict must be entered with ‘all the resources and
will to win’ that the US possessed. Weinberger believed that securing and
maintaining public support was also essential if any commitment of force
were to be successful. The public would ‘have to be convinced that our
national interests required, indeed demanded, that we go to war’. Without
such assurances, Weinberger did not believe force should be employed.97
When George Shultz became secretary of state he entered what he came
to describe as ‘a battle royal’ with Weinberger over when it was appropriate
to use military force.98 Shultz shared Reagan’s concerns about what the pres-
ident called ‘the Vietnam problem’. He believed the fear of becoming mired
in ‘another Vietnam’ had the US ‘tied in knots’. The time had come, Shultz
decided, to throw off the constraints imposed by Vietnam and return the
use of force to what he perceived as its rightful place as a viable option in
foreign affairs. Shultz made clear his views in a speech on October 25, 1984,
while addressing the US response to international terrorism:

We cannot allow ourselves to become the Hamlet of nations, worrying

endlessly over whether and how to respond. A great nation with global
responsibilities cannot afford to be hamstrung by confusion and indeci-
siveness. … We must reach a consensus in this country that our responses
should go beyond passive defense to consider means of active prevention,
preemption, and retaliation.

Shultz’s belief that his words reflected the president’s views on the use of
force seemed confirmed when White House spokesperson Larry Speakes
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 107

announced that the speech ‘was administration policy from top to bottom’.99
Weinberger, however, had other ideas.
During the summer of 1984, Weinberger had drawn up what he called ‘six
major tests to be applied when we are weighing the use of US combat forces
abroad’. These had been circulated in draft form among Reagan’s national
security team and Weinberger wanted to make them public. According to
his then Senior Military Assistant, Colin Powell, Weinberger was dissuaded
from doing so by White House ‘political operatives’ until after the presi-
dential election.100 On November 28, 1984, Weinberger announced his six
tests in an address to the National Press Club in Washington, DC. According
to Weinberger, the US should only commit troops to combat abroad if:
(1) an interest vital to the US or her allies is at stake
(2) the political will to win and the strength of the force used is sufficient
to ensure victory
(3) political and military objectives are clearly defined and attainable
(4) the objectives and size of forces committed are continually reassessed
and adjusted if necessary
(5) congressional and public support is assured
(6) the decision to use force is a last resort.
These six criteria became known as the Weinberger Doctrine.101 It was the
first time, at least publicly, that a high-ranking public official had attempted
to codify the lessons on the use of force learned from the American experi-
ence in Vietnam.
Powell believed the Weinberger Doctrine provided ‘a practical guide’ to
committing forces to combat that he would himself use to advise presidents
in the future. He was concerned, however, that such an explicit public
proclamation of the Pentagon’s decision making criteria could invite adver-
saries to seek loopholes through which they could challenge US interests
unhindered.102 Shultz was far more critical, concluding that the Weinberger
Doctrine was ‘the Vietnam syndrome in spades, carried to an absurd level,
and a complete abdication of the duties of leadership’. Shultz believed
Weinberger’s tests were only suitable for deciding whether to enter full-scale
conventional war with an armed adversary but would forbid any lesser
actions designed to combat ‘the wide variety of complex, unclear, gray-area
dangers facing us in the contemporary world’. Shultz maintained that diplo-
macy was most effective in solving international disputes when ‘force – or
the threat of force – was a credible part of the equation’. To follow the
Weinberger Doctrine, according to Shultz, would be to weaken the power
and influence the US could exert in world affairs.103
William Safire of the New York Times wrote that Weinberger and Shultz were
engaged in a ‘battle for Ronald Reagan’s strategic soul’.104 This battle contin-
ued throughout the administration. When and why force was authorized by
Reagan raises important questions about the nature of the administration’s
108 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

foreign policy. Did Reagan’s use of force confirm his rhetorical claim that
US strength and resolve in foreign affairs had been restored? Or does the
record show that, in actual fact, force was only employed in limited form
under very specific conditions? If the latter is true then it is clear that the
US continued, under Reagan, to be preoccupied with avoiding another
Vietnam and to be wary of acting in ways inconsistent with the belief that
the US is an exceptional, benign nation. To answer these questions we must
look at the administration’s use or threat of force in policies towards Central
America, Lebanon, Grenada, the Soviet Union, and Libya and international
terrorism.

Central America

The small Central American nations of El Salvador and Nicaragua had been
governed by elites since the 1930s. In Nicaragua, the corrupt Somoza gov-
ernment, which the Carter administration had condemned for its human
rights abuses, was finally overthrown by the Sandinista movement in July
1979. Carter initially extended diplomatic recognition and humanitarian
aid to the new government but withdrew support in light of the Nicaraguan
backing of a leftist insurgency in El Salvador. An oligarchy had kept tight
control of El Salvador since 1932. Following a coup in October 1979, the
Carter administration hoped a moderate middle way had been found, but
repression and death squads continued to dominate El Salvadoran politics.
The Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional (FMLN) led a campaign of
guerrilla warfare against the El Salvadoran government with arms acquired
from the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. Despite the perception in Washington,
Nicaragua did not become a fully fledged communist country.105 The
Sandinistas allowed some 60 per cent of the economy to remain under pri-
vate ownership. Lacking American support, they did seek aid from Cuba and
the Soviet Union but also received economic help from Canada, Japan and
Western Europe.106 The Reagan administration also overemphasized the
Soviet links to the FMLN. Indeed, in 1981, the Wall Street Journal quipped it
had ‘found only one instance of outright Soviet aid to the rebels – an airplane
ticket from Moscow to Vietnam for one guerrilla’.107
According to Gaddis Smith, none of the major architects of Reagan’s
Central American policy ‘knew very much about the region, nor did they
consider such knowledge relevant or necessary’.108 Haig believed that ‘a
determined show of American will and power’ could stem what he regarded
as the expanding influence of the Soviet Union and its Cuban pawn in
Central America. Haig was particularly enthusiastic for the prospects of suc-
cess in bolstering the El Salvadoran government in their struggle with the
FMLN.109 In private, he told Reagan: ‘Mr. President, this is one you can
win.’110 Yet Reagan’s policy towards El Salvador, and his opposition to the
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 109

Sandinista government in Nicaragua, was restrained by the limits on

American action imposed by the lessons of Vietnam.
Reagan emphasized how imperative he believed it was for the US to help
Central America overcome ‘externally supported aggression’. He told the
Congress that the ‘political and strategic stakes’ were the same in El Salvador
and Nicaragua as they had been in Greece and Turkey in 1947. Reagan
believed the American response must be as ‘appropriate and successful’ as
the Truman Doctrine had been to those earlier crises. The US, Reagan con-
cluded, could not afford to ‘stand by passively while the people of Central
America are delivered to totalitarianism’. But Reagan was also very careful to
allay fears that the US would be dragged into another Vietnam-style quag-
mire. He insisted: ‘there is no thought of sending combat troops to Central
America.’111 According to Reagan: ‘there is no comparison whatsoever in
this situation and Vietnam.’112
The American experience in Vietnam, however, was a major determinant
of how the Reagan administration approached its Central American policy
making. Haig believed that one lesson of Vietnam was that any foreign
involvement must avoid ‘incrementalism’. By his own admission, however,
Haig was ‘virtually alone’ in his belief that the US should give massive eco-
nomic and military aid to El Salvador while also treating the problem ‘at its
source’ by bringing the full economic, political and military strength of the
US to bear on Cuba.113 Weinberger claims that Haig advised the President to
actually invade Cuba and overthrow Castro’s regime as the only way to elim-
inate the spread of communism in Central America. Weinberger opposed
any such action, insisting that the American public would not support an
invasion.114 The Secretary of Defense was supported in his views by the rest
of the NSC members, apart from Haig who is critical of Weinberger for ‘insis-
tently rais[ing] the spectre of Vietnam’. Reagan disliked upsetting any of his
advisers and appeared sympathetic to Haig’s views, but he followed the
majority advice within the NSC and ordered what Haig describes as ‘a low-
key treatment of El Salvador as a local problem and sought to cure it through
limited amounts of military and economic aid’.115
However, US support for the El Salvador government, and later for the
Contra rebels in Nicaragua, did bear a marked resemblance to early efforts to
support the government of South Vietnam in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Large sums of military, economic and humanitarian aid were complemented
with American advisers who trained the El Salvadoran armed forces and the
Contras. It is true that US combat troops were not deployed to fight in either
country, so to that extent Reagan was correct in saying that the US was not
involving itself in another Vietnam. But Haig’s fears of incremental escala-
tion were justified and Reagan’s Central American policy might well have
embroiled the US in another intractable small-scale conflict had it not been
for increasing congressional and public unease that led to the cutting of
funds for the administration’s efforts aside from humanitarian aid. In the
110 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

case of Nicaragua, of course, policy then went underground, leading to the

ignominy of the Iran-Contra affair; but more of that later.

Lebanon

The legacy of the Vietnam War also cast its shadow over the first major
deployment of armed forces by the Reagan administration. From August 25
to September 10, 1982, and again from September 29, 1982 to February 26,
1984, US Marines were deployed as part of a multinational peacekeeping
force (MNF) in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. The Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO), with the support of Syria, had established its head-
quarters in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war and used it as a base for
attacking Israeli targets. On June 6, 1982, Israel launched a full-scale inva-
sion of Lebanon to root out the PLO. The Israelis occupied southern
Lebanon, laid siege to Beirut and cut off supply lines to the PLO from the
Syrians, who occupied eastern Lebanon.116
After West Beirut had suffered weeks of shelling and bombing, the US,
along with France and Italy, deployed the MNF in Lebanon with what
Reagan considered two clear objectives: to facilitate the safe departure of all
members and operatives of the PLO from Lebanese territory and to restore
the authority and sovereignty of the Lebanese government. To further
assuage fears that US involvement would lead to a long, inconclusive and
costly commitment, Reagan assured reporters and the Congress that in ‘no
case’ would US troops stay longer than 30 days.117
The initial deployment of Marines lived up to expectations as they suc-
cessfully oversaw the withdrawal of the PLO and the restoration of Lebanese
control of Beirut within the allotted time period. The MNF soon returned,
however, following the assassination of the Lebanese president-elect and a
massacre of Palestinian refugees that exposed the continuing instability of a
country still occupied by Israeli and Syrian forces and the many warring
Lebanese factions.118 This time, the US-led MNF had three main objectives:
to provide an ‘interposition force’ to prevent further bloodshed; to facilitate
the restoration of a strong and stable central government; and to preside
over the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon. The deployment
would again be in a noncombatant role and for a ‘limited time’, although
Reagan did not specify the expected duration of the mission.119
Initially, the violence subsided, but it soon returned, culminating in the
suicide bombing of the American and the French barracks in the early hours
of October 23, 1983. The bombs took the lives of 241 US Marines and
58 French paratroopers.120 Reagan reacted angrily to the bombings but
insisted that withdrawing US forces from Lebanon could not be considered
as an option ‘while their mission still remains’.121 In what Cannon describes
as an ‘extraordinary triumph of optimism over reality’, Reagan argued that
the MNF was attacked ‘precisely because it is doing the job it was sent to do in
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 111

Beirut. It is accomplishing its mission’.122 Despite mounting pressure from

the public, the media, the Congress and within his own administration,
Reagan continued to believe that the MNF was achieving its goals and that
the US could not abandon the people of Lebanon.123 He told the nation that
Americans could not and would not ‘turn our backs on friends’ and ‘cut and
run’ from Beirut.124 On February 6, 1984, Reagan stated: ‘The commitment
of the United States to the unity, independence, and sovereignty of Lebanon
remains firm and unwavering.’125 Yet the very next day, Reagan announced
the ‘redeployment of the marines from Beirut airport to their ships off-
shore’.126 He refused to accept, however, that the ‘redeployment’ was actu-
ally a withdrawal. Reagan was convinced that the US was continuing to fulfil
its ‘moral obligation’ to the Lebanese people. The offshore deployment, cou-
pled with the authority to use naval gunfire and air support against hostile
positions, was, Reagan argued, the way ‘to use our diplomatic and military
resources to the best advantage’.127 Regardless of Reagan’s perception, sig-
nificant US involvement in Lebanon ended before any of the three stated
objectives of the MNF had been achieved.
No matter what Reagan may have concluded, the American experience in
Lebanon demonstrated that the limits to American will and power exposed
by the Vietnam War still existed. The American public would not have
accepted a full-scale intervention to drive foreign forces from Lebanon and
restore law and order between the warring indigenous factions. The Reagan
administration, therefore, could only affect the situation in Lebanon in a
limited way. The initial deployment illustrated that the US could make effec-
tive contributions to military missions with clearly defined objectives that
were morally justifiable and readily attainable given the size and strength of
the force employed, even though on this occasion those accomplishments
had collapsed as soon as the US withdrew. With the second deployment,
however, Reagan managed to make the mistakes of Vietnam despite trying
to apply its lessons. He authorized a relatively small, low-key deployment in
order to minimize the chances of the US becoming involved in an
intractable long-term commitment, yet he failed to define US objectives nar-
rowly or clearly enough so that they could credibly be achieved by the force
deployed. This rather schizophrenic approach resulted from Reagan’s desire
to please all his advisers rather than decisively resolving conflicts within his
cabinet. While Shultz, the NSC staff, and the State Department convinced
Reagan that the interests at stake in Lebanon warranted a US ‘presence’,
Weinberger and the Pentagon made clear their reluctance to commit US
troops to a situation that might embroil them in an interminable conflict.128
The resulting noncombatant, limited-term force lacked operational effec-
tiveness and was dangerously vulnerable in the volatile environment of
Beirut. The whole American involvement in Lebanon exposed the continu-
ing limits to US power: the Reagan administration had neither the will nor
the ability to end the fighting and resolve the situation; the forces on the
112 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

ground were unable to defend or protect themselves adequately against ter-

rorist attack; the American public and their representatives in Congress were
unwilling to give continued support to a military campaign that was reaping
no tangible rewards at the expense of too many American lives, particularly
in a distant nation of which they had little knowledge or understanding;
and potential adversaries throughout the world were shown that killing
large numbers of Americans would encourage the US to withdraw from a
situation rather than suffer greater casualties. Reagan’s actions in Lebanon
failed to give much authenticity to his claims that the US was once more a
strong, confident and powerful nation. Yet the debacle in Lebanon had few
negative effects on the public standing of the administration, largely, thanks
to some rather fortuitous events closer to home in the Caribbean.

Grenada

On October 25, 1983, two days after the barracks in Lebanon were bombed,
US forces invaded the small Caribbean island of Grenada in what Reagan
characterized as a ‘rescue mission’. The successful intervention demon-
strated, according to administration officials, that Reagan’s claims that
American will and resolve had been restored were not simply empty words.
Shultz believed the Grenada invasion sent a message around the world that
‘Ronald Reagan is capable of action beyond rhetoric’.129 The American
response in Grenada, the administration contended, would show other
nations that the US was willing to use force to achieve its objectives. Reagan
and his advisers believed it would demonstrate to the Soviet Union in par-
ticular that the US would not stand by and allow communist revolution to
spread throughout the western hemisphere unchallenged. Yet the interven-
tion was a low-risk, limited objective action that Reagan and his advisers
knew could be conducted swiftly and with little cost, under conditions likely
to ensure public support.
Grenada is the southernmost of the Windward Islands north of Trinidad and
Tobago, measures only 21 miles long by 12 miles wide (about the size of
Martha’s Vineyard or the Isle of Wight), and has a population of around
100,000. After gaining independence from Britain in 1974, it was ruled by an
anti-communist government led by the corrupt and bizarre Eric Gairy, who
was renowned for frequently warning the UN General Assembly of the threat
of extraterrestrial invasion! In March 1979, the opposition New Jewel
Movement (NJM) led by a populist nationalist Maurice Bishop took control of
the island in a coup. Bishop’s deputy prime minister, Bernard Coard, was a
Marxist who encouraged an opening of relations with Cuba. The Carter admin-
istration denied Grenada aid and publicly denounced Bishop’s government.
Relations worsened once Reagan became president and in mid-1982 Bishop
signed an economic aid agreement with the Soviet Union. Then on October
12, 1983, Coard led a coup and imprisoned Bishop and his loyal cabinet
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 113

ministers. A week later Bishop and his four ministers were freed by a crowd of
supporters only to be recaptured and shot by Coard’s troops along with several
of the crowd members. Coard then imposed a shoot-on-sight curfew.130
Reagan believed wholeheartedly that American intervention in Grenada
on October 25 was justified. He believed not only that vital American inter-
ests were at stake but that the US had a duty to assist other regional states
in seeking to restore stability and freedom to Grenada, where what he
described as ‘a brutal group of leftist thugs’ had overthrown the govern-
ment, murdered its leaders and many of its supporters, imprisoned the gov-
ernor general, and imposed a ‘shoot-to-kill’ curfew. American interests were
directly at stake because some one thousand US citizens, most of them
attending St George’s University Medical School, were residents of Grenada.
With the shoot-on-sight curfew in effect, the administration argued the stu-
dents were in ‘life-threatening danger’, or at least vulnerable to seizure as
hostages.131 As Reagan declared in his October 27 address to the nation: ‘I
believe our government has a responsibility to go to the aid of its citizens,
if their right to life and liberty is threatened. The nightmare of our hostages
in Iran must never be repeated.’132
The administration also argued that American security was threatened in
strategic terms by developments in Grenada. As early as April 8, 1982,
Reagan had raised concern about the ‘overturn of Westminister [sic] parlia-
mentary democracy in Grenada’. He warned other East Caribbean states that
Grenada ‘now bears the Soviet and Cuban trademark, which means that it
will attempt to spread the virus among its neighbors’.133 On March 23, 1983,
evoking memories of the Cuban missile crisis, Reagan used aerial recon-
naissance photographs to reveal to the American public the full extent of
the apparent threat posed by developments on Grenada:

On the small island of Grenada, … the Cubans, with Soviet financing and
backing, are in the process of building an airfield with a 10,000-foot run-
way. Grenada doesn’t even have an air force. Who is it intended for? …
The rapid buildup of Grenada’s military potential is unrelated to any con-
ceivable threat to this island country of under 110,000 people and totally
at odds with the pattern of other eastern Caribbean states, most of which
are unarmed.
The Soviet-Cuban militarization of Grenada, in short, can only be seen
as power projection into the region.134

These developments had taken place under the leadership of Maurice Bishop
but when his regime was violently overthrown the Reagan administration
had concluded that the threat of Soviet-sponsored communist expansion
from Grenada was ever more likely.
Not all Americans agreed with the administration’s assessment of the situa-
tion, however. Two days after Reagan’s speech in March, Rev. Herbert
114 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Daughtry, president of the North Carolina based African Peoples’ Christian

Organization, wrote a letter to Reagan in which he claimed he had evidence
that there was nothing sinister about the new international airport in Grenada.
Daughtry related how a group of ‘17 youth and 6 adult chaperons’ from his
organization spent ten days in Grenada on a work-study and recreation visit:

Many of the youth toured the airport construction site. It was not a top
secret construction site. Our youth have the same photographs you have,
taken with simple inexpensive photographic equipment. Why then, Sir,
was it necessary to use complicated aerial equipment when the construc-
tion site is accessible to all who want to visit it?135

Needless to say, the administration did not heed the advice of Daughtry or
others who questioned Reagan’s policy. Indeed, in the wake of the American
intervention, Reagan claimed his concerns about the communist presence
on Grenada were vindicated:

We had to assume that several hundred Cubans working on the airport

could be military reserves. Well, as it turned out, the number was much
larger, and they were a military force. Six hundred of them have been
taken prisoner, and we have discovered a complete base with weapons
and communications equipment, which makes it clear a Cuban occupa-
tion of the island had been planned. … Grenada, we were told, was a
friendly island paradise for tourism. Well, it wasn’t. It was a Soviet-Cuban
colony, being readied as a major military bastion to export terror and
undermine democracy. We got there just in time.136

The Reagan administration further justified its intervention in Grenada by

stressing that its actions were legitimate because they were conducted in
conjunction with members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States
(OECS). Reagan made clear that the US was answering a formal request for
military assistance from the OECS whose members had voted for a ‘collec-
tive security force’ to restore order to Grenada.137 Such support, though min-
imal in size, was important to Reagan and his advisers as it enabled them to
deflect criticism that the US was acting as a self-interested, domineering
superpower imposing its will on weaker neighbours.
That force should be employed to achieve US objectives seems not, on this
occasion, to have aroused much conflict within the administration. Shultz
suggests in his memoirs that Weinberger and the Joint Chiefs exhibited their
usual reluctance to resort to military intervention, at least until a suitably
long period of preparation had been undertaken.138 However, it is clear that
Reagan made his decision to intervene within hours of learning of the situ-
ation in Grenada, and Weinberger, in his own account, shows little indica-
tion that he and Chairman of the JCS, General John Vessey, advised against
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 115

the use of force.139 This willingness to resort to force reflects the belief within
the administration that Grenada offered a model example of the conditions
under which the US could effectively employ military options.
Reagan emphasized that US objectives in Grenada were clear, compelling
and attainable. Those objectives were: ‘to protect our own citizens, to facil-
itate the evacuation of those who want to leave, and to help in the restora-
tion of democratic institutions in Grenada.’140 Reagan and his advisers were
unanimous in their belief that the military should be allowed to employ
whatever degree of force they deemed necessary for the successful comple-
tion of their mission and that the Joint Chiefs should have full control over
the operation. In fact, both Shultz and Weinberger went out of their way to
ensure a more than adequate degree of force was applied. Shultz recalls that
he told Reagan to: ‘call Jack Vessey back and ask him what the numbers of
troops were that would be required for this operation. “After he has told you,
Mr. President, I suggest that you tell him to double it”.’141 Weinberger gave
the Joint Chiefs similar instructions to ‘double whatever CINCLANT
[Commander in Chief, Atlantic Forces] says he needs’.142 Consequently, over
three thousand US troops were involved in the intervention, including
Army Rangers and paratroopers, Navy, Marine, and Air Force personnel.
American forces outnumbered the resistance they met by more than three
to one.143
Administration officials were confident that intervention would not lead
to an inconclusive, prolonged, Vietnam-style conflict. Vessey reported to
Weinberger prior to the mission that there was ‘a good degree of certainty
that we would be able to free the American students very quickly’.144 Reagan
was determined that American forces would not remain in Grenada for an
extended period of time. When he announced the deployment, he stressed:
‘We want to be out as quickly as possible.’145 Reagan assured the Congress
that the deployment of US troops was a ‘temporary’ measure: ‘Our forces
will remain only so long as their presence is required.’146
This intention to leave Grenada as soon as the administration’s limited
objectives had been achieved not only served to quell fears of another
Vietnam but also gave apparent confirmation of the exceptional nature of
the United States. Reagan was able to use the Grenada intervention as an
example of the benign intentions of the US towards the rest of the world.
He denied, for example, that there could be any comparison between
American actions in Grenada and Soviet action in Afghanistan.147 In his
mind, Grenada proved Reagan’s frequent assertion that: ‘America seeks no
new territory, nor do we wish to dominate others.’ The mission to rid
Grenada of its ‘leftist thugs’ demonstrated clearly to Reagan that: ‘We com-
mit our resources and risk the lives of those in our Armed Forces to rescue oth-
ers from bloodshed and turmoil and to prevent humankind from drowning in
a sea of tyranny.’148 The Reagan administration claimed it had no intention of
seizing control of Grenada and imposing American authority. As soon as
116 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

the island was secured and law and order restored, the Grenadians would be
left to determine their own future free from foreign pressure. In accordance
with American plans, the island was secured rapidly. Within a day the
medical school had been secured, the airport captured, and within a few
days the island was cleared of Cubans and ‘other resistance’.149
Governmental authority and law and order were soon restored to the island
with a free election following on December 19, 1983. As Weinberger recalls:

Four days before the election, to the considerable amazement of many of

our critics …, the American forces simply left. By December 15, 1983, less
than two months after they went in, United States combat forces had all
been withdrawn from Grenada. We left behind only training, police,
medical and support elements.150

The intervention appeared a resounding success. All US objectives had been

achieved rapidly with minimal cost in lives and materiel. Reagan had
insisted that a ‘top priority’ of the operation be ‘to minimize risk, to avoid
casualties to our men and also the Grenadian forces as much as humanly
possible’.151 By the end of the mission, American casualties totalled only
18 killed, 93 wounded and 16 missing, with 45 Grenadians also losing their
lives.152 Reagan believed that US armed forces in Grenada were ‘heroes of
freedom’ who had ‘conducted themselves in the finest tradition of the mil-
itary’. They had ‘rescued’ the US citizens on the island and ‘liberated’ the
Grenadians themselves.153 Following a fact-finding mission for the Senate
Committee on Armed Services, Senator John Tower reached conclusions
similar to the president’s. Tower reported that he had found ‘overwhelming
support from Grenadians for the incursion’ which he claimed they referred
to as a ‘liberation, not an invasion’.154
Public opinion polls conducted in the immediate aftermath of the inter-
vention showed a high approval rating for the action in Grenada. A
November 1983 ABC News-Washington Post poll, for example, showed a
margin of 71 to 22 per cent in favour of the Grenada intervention. The pub-
lic appeared responsive to Reagan’s rationale for becoming involved in the
island’s affairs. A CBS News-New York Times poll found 50 per cent of those
polled believed the US had intervened ‘mainly to protect the Americans liv-
ing there’, while 35 per cent felt the intervention was conducted primarily
to ‘overthrow a Marxist government’. Polls also indicate, however, that the
public was more concerned that the administration should avoid allowing
Grenada to turn into another Vietnam than they were dedicated to the cause
of ensuring a democratic future for the Grenadians. A Gallup-Newsweek poll
found that by a ‘five to four margin’ respondents believed: ‘American troops
should leave Grenada “as soon as the safety of Americans is assured” rather
than wait until “a democratic government is capable of running the coun-
try”.’155 The popularity of the Grenada intervention appears, therefore, to rest
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 117

more on a sense of relief that military force was used without the US becom-
ing entangled in a complex, long-term commitment, than representing a full
restoration of confidence in the strength and certainty of American power.
The administration viewed the planning and execution of the Grenada
intervention as clear evidence that the US was once more conducting itself
in an exemplary manner. Shultz was proud to conclude that: ‘Our effort in
Grenada wasn’t an immoral imperialist intervention.’ Indeed, to Shultz the
intervention was ‘a shot heard around the world by usurpers and despots of
every ideology’. Along with British action in the Falklands War, Shultz
believed that Grenada sent the ‘sharp and clear’ message that ‘some Western
democracies were again ready to use the military strength they had harbored
and built up over the years in defense of their principles and interests’.156
Yet despite this belief and the popularity of the intervention in the US, the
American action was not received so well abroad.
The most striking criticism came from Reagan’s closest foreign ally, British
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose government roundly opposed the
US intervention, not least because Grenada was a member of the British
Commonwealth with the Queen as its Head of State. Thatcher clearly did
not share Shultz’s comparison between the American action in Grenada and
her own government’s war over the Falkland Islands. In a last minute com-
muniqué before the invasion began she told Reagan she was ‘deeply dis-
turbed’ by his plan of action and was strongly against military action. She
relates in her memoirs how she believed Washington had exaggerated the
threat from Grenada and that the coup ‘morally objectionable as it was, was
a change in degree rather than in kind’. When Reagan proceeded with the
invasion, the prime minister ‘felt dismayed and let down by what had hap-
pened’.157 Thatcher made her feelings plain on the BBC World Service on
October 30, 1983:

We in the Western countries, the Western democracies, use our force to

defend our way of life. We do not use it to walk into independent sover-
eign territories. … If you’re going to pronounce a new law that wherever
communism reigns against the will of the people, even though it’s hap-
pened internally, there the USA shall enter, then we are going to have
really terrible wars in the world.158

Thatcher’s sentiments were echoed in stronger terms by reaction in Moscow.

Pravda criticized the Reagan administration’s ‘ongoing recklessness’ and its
‘militarist policy’. Moscow Radio condemned Reagan for showing openly
that ‘his administration is prepared to use any means to overthrow govern-
ments it doesn’t approve of’.159 Reagan himself had given the Soviet Union
the ammunition to accuse him of hypocrisy over the Grenada intervention.
In an official letter to Brezhnev on April 24, 1981, Reagan had chastised the
Soviet Union for bestowing upon itself ‘special rights and, indeed, duties, to
118 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

preserve a particular form of government in other countries’. Reagan told

Brezhnev firmly that: ‘Claims of special “rights,” however defined, cannot
be used to justify the threat of force to infringe upon the sovereign rights of
any country to determine its own political, economic and social institu-
tions.’160 Reagan and his advisers would no doubt argue the Grenadians had
already lost their sovereign rights to Soviet and Cuban interference and that
US action aimed to return those rights. However, Reagan’s admonishment
of Soviet behaviour in 1981 could readily be directed at his own adminis-
tration’s actions in Grenada. The administration, of course, claimed its
actions were legitimate because they were conducted as part of a collective
action with members of the OECS. Yet it was the Reagan administration that
defined the mission’s objectives, planned the operation and supplied the
vast majority of the forces used. As was Reagan’s way, however, he was able
to ignore the realities of the invasion and convince the American people
that the action in Grenada was legitimate, justifiable, and showed the world
that the US was once again ‘a beacon of hope for all those who long for
freedom and a better world’.161
The claim of Reagan, Shultz and others that Grenada proved US power
and resolve had been restored is also highly questionable. The intervention
was a strictly limited operation in which overwhelming force was employed
against substantially weaker opposition. That the US achieved its objectives
should come as no surprise. Although the intervention did illustrate the
willingness of the Reagan administration to employ military force, it did not
prove that the US would readily resort to force again to meet future threats.
There was little in the Grenada action to indicate that the limits to American
power and resolve exposed by the Vietnam War had been overcome. Reagan
and his advisers, including Weinberger and the Joint Chiefs, supported the
use of force in Grenada precisely because they believed the situation could
be resolved swiftly, conclusively and with few American losses. The public
supported the effort for the same reasons. The success of the mission did not
mean that the administration would exercise military options to deal with
all future threats to American security. On the contrary, if anything it made
it ever more likely that force would only be applied if conditions similar to
those in the Grenada situation existed – that is, objectives were clear and
attainable; a swift, low-risk victory was expected; and no long-term com-
mitment of troops was necessary. The battle between Shultz and Weinberger,
therefore, was not solved by the Grenada intervention. Shultz believed the
intervention had proved that the use of force must not be left only to a last
resort but applied whenever it is the option most likely to efficiently achieve
US objectives. The threat and use of force had to be recognized as ‘legitimate
instruments of foreign policy’.162 For Weinberger, Grenada provided ‘the
complete model for future similar activities’ where the United States could
achieve ‘our political objectives at minimum cost, in the shortest possible
time’. The Grenada mission did not change Weinberger’s general attitude
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 119

towards the use of force, however, and met with his support only because it
satisfied the conditions under which he believed combat troops should be
committed to a situation.163 President Reagan also remained cautious about
the actual use of force even though Grenada strengthened his belief that the
US ‘must not and will not be intimidated by anyone, anywhere’.164 He
assured a reporter on November 3, 1983 that the success in Grenada did not
mean that the US would now apply military force elsewhere because: ‘I can’t
foresee any situation that has exactly the same things that this one had.’165

Libya and terrorism

That the use of force remained an element of policy applied only under the
strictest conditions is further illustrated by the administration’s handling of
the threat of international terrorism. As early as January 27, 1981, Reagan
warned terrorists throughout the world: ‘when the rules of international
behavior are violated, our policy will be one of swift and effective retribu-
tion.’166 In the aftermath of the deaths of the US Marines in Lebanon,
Reagan promised that the United States would be at the forefront of inter-
national efforts to curb terrorism.167 Yet the administration found itself rel-
atively powerless to prevent or respond to the acts of terrorism being
increasingly perpetrated throughout the globe. Commercial airliners were
hijacked, cruise liners seized, airports attacked, and hostages taken by a host
of terrorist groups without serious repercussions despite Reagan’s insistence
that such activity would never be condoned or tolerated.168
The only time Reagan’s anti-terrorism policy culminated in an aggressive
response was with the bombing of Libya on April 14, 1986. Next to the
Grenada intervention, the attack on Libya was the only other major use of
force employed by the Reagan administration. Weinberger claims that the
Libya bombing demonstrated Reagan’s ‘strong resolution and determination
to use America’s newly regained military power’. Yet the bombing was only
carried out because, like the Grenada intervention, it was a low-risk, limited
action that could be swiftly and effectively executed. As Weinberger admits,
his tests for determining whether force should be used ‘seemed to me to be
fulfilled by the President’s decision to use our military in Libya’.169
On April 5, 1986, a bomb had exploded at a West Berlin discotheque,
killing an American serviceman and a Turkish woman and wounding some
230 others including 50 US military personnel. Reagan assured the public
that US intelligence had gathered irrefutable evidence that the bomb was
planted by Libyan operatives under the direct orders of Libyan President
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. A few days earlier, Gaddafi had formally called
upon Arabs everywhere to attack anything American, claiming a state of war
existed between his country and the United States. Since 1981, the US had
been in dispute with Libya over the jurisdiction of the Gulf of Sidra, recog-
nized by all but Tripoli as international waters. In August 1981, two Libyan
120 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

fighters were shot down after opening fire on US planes in the area. Tensions
had remained high ever since with the Reagan administration convinced of
Gaddafi’s involvement in many acts of terrorism against the US and its allies,
but until the West Berlin bombing nothing could be proved. The Reagan
administration considered the bombing to be an attack upon the US and
therefore justified the bombing of Libyan military targets associated with
the training of terrorists as a retaliatory strike made in self-defence, consis-
tent with Article 51 of the UN Charter. The attack was also considered a
response to an obvious threat to American security interests. The adminis-
tration believed a punitive attack on Libya was necessary to protect the lives
of American citizens travelling or living abroad against state-sponsored ter-
rorism. The action was given added legitimacy by the support of Margaret
Thatcher who authorized the use of British airspace so that American F-111
bombers could be deployed from their British base.170 The French govern-
ment, however, refused overflight permission for the bombers and led a cho-
rus of European critics following the operation. French President François
Mitterand commented: ‘I don’t believe that you stop terrorism by killing 150
Libyans who have done nothing.’171 As Geir Lundestad observes, many
Europeans regarded as ‘too emotional’ Reagan’s policy towards Libya and
other ‘enemies’ such as Nicaragua. Actions such as the bombing of Tripoli
were thought to reflect ‘a certain itch to get even with rulers who had cer-
tainly offended America, but who did not really threaten its vital interests’.172
The objective of the mission was to deal a heavy blow to the Libyan capac-
ity for supporting terrorism and to send a message to Gaddafi that any fur-
ther sponsorship of terrorist acts against the US or its allies would not go
unpunished. Reagan insisted the targets in Libya were ‘carefully chosen,
both for their direct linkage to Libyan support of terrorist activities and for
the purpose of minimizing collateral damage and injury to innocent civil-
ians’.173 The administration was determined to maximize the strength of the
message sent to Gaddafi while remaining true to its claim to be a benign
nation that did not resort to force lightly.
The attack was regarded by the administration as a great success that again
confirmed the US had restored its reputation as a powerful nation willing to
defend its interests with force if necessary. Shultz believes that: ‘Seldom in
military history … had a punch been so clearly telegraphed.’174 The bomb-
ing raid was completed in about half an hour, with the loss of only one
F-111 (out of more than forty that had flown from their base in England)
and its two crew members. Despite facing criticism for off-target bombs that
destroyed civilian buildings, causing injuries and deaths, the administration
celebrated the substantial damage it claimed to have inflicted on all its main
targets. Larry Speakes proclaimed the mission a great success because it made
clear that ‘terrorism cannot be supported without incurring a heavy price’.
He claimed the action would ‘deter future terrorist attacks’ and ‘send a clear
message that we will no longer tolerate death of innocent Americans and
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 121

others’. He concluded that this message had been ‘heard and understood’ by
Gaddafi.175 Shultz claims this assumption proved largely correct: ‘Qaddafi,
after twitching feverishly with a flurry of vengeful responses, quieted down
and retreated into the desert.’176 Robert Rotberg agrees that in ‘subtle ways’
the bombing did curb Gaddafi’s ‘adventurism’ in Chad, the Sudan, and
other parts of North Africa.177 International terrorism, however, did not
abate and Libya itself would again be implicated in the December 1988
destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
The American public was as enthusiastic about the Libya bombing as it
had been towards the intervention in Grenada. A Newsweek-Gallup poll
found 71 per cent of respondents approved of the military action while only
21 per cent disapproved.178 Reagan’s approval rating leapt six points to
68 per cent in the month following the raid, the highest of his tenure and
a level of popularity unprecedented for a mid-term president.179 Even more
telling though is that, in light of the Libya bombing, 62 per cent of those
polled believed Reagan ‘makes wise use of military forces to solve foreign-
policy problems’ while only 26 per cent held that Reagan was ‘too quick to
employ US forces’.180
The Reagan administration seemed to gauge well the circumstances under
which it was acceptable to use force to pursue its objectives. At the symbolic
level, Reagan’s attitude towards the use of military force did help restore a
great deal of American self-confidence, but most Americans remained
overtly cautious about future deployments of force. Polling conducted by
the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations in October and November 1986,
a few months after the bombing of Tripoli, indicates that the American pub-
lic remained ‘generally opposed to using troops overseas’. The Council
found that Americans were ‘somewhat more willing to use troops overseas
in selected circumstances’. In fact, a majority of those polled favoured
deploying troops only if the Soviet Union invaded Western Europe (68 per
cent) or Japan (53 per cent). A small plurality of 45 per cent favoured the
use of troops if the Nicaraguan government permitted the Soviets to build a
missile base on their territory, compared with 42 per cent who disapproved.
In all other circumstances, however, including the case of North Korea
invading South Korea, a sizeable majority opposed committing US troops.
The Council also found that there was a strong correlation between attitudes
towards the Vietnam War and willingness to use troops overseas. In 1986, a
majority of the public maintained that the Vietnam War had been ‘a thor-
oughly misguided effort’ and these people were less willing, in every cir-
cumstance, to commit troops overseas than those who defended the
Vietnam War as just.181
In the case of both Grenada and Libya, the Reagan administration had
employed force decisively but neither example offered a major test of
American resolve. At most these were convenient opportunities for the
administration to support its rhetoric with action, without risking great
122 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

losses or becoming involved in complex and prolonged hostilities. With his

rhetoric, Reagan promoted the image of a United States standing tall, ready
and willing to meet any challenge anywhere in the world with all the power
and resources of the greatest nation on earth. In reality, the limits to
American power, revealed by the defeat in Vietnam, continued to restrain
the reach and effectiveness of American influence on international affairs.
The perceived lessons of the Vietnam War determined when and how the
apparently renewed will and resolve of the US could be applied to interna-
tional situations. This gap between rhetoric and reality can be seen most
clearly in the Reagan administration’s policy towards the Soviet Union.

Rhetoric vs reality I: Reagan and the Soviets

We have seen how Ronald Reagan took a strong rhetorical stance against the
Soviet Union. He believed this approach demonstrated the renewed strength
and resolve of the United States. As he told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in
August 1983: ‘For too long our nation had been moot [sic] to the injustices
of totalitarianism. So we began speaking out … for freedom and democracy
and the values that all of us share in our hearts.’182 Yet despite his May 1982
claim that all Soviet aggression ‘will meet a firm Western response’, Reagan’s
words were far stronger than his actions towards the Soviet Union.183
Although Reagan came to office criticizing the Carter administration for
being too weak and accommodating in its Soviet policy, within a few
months he had overturned many of the sanctions his predecessor had
imposed on the Soviet Union. Most obviously, on April 24, 1981, Reagan
ended the grain embargo imposed after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,
claiming it hurt American farmers more than it did the Kremlin. The Reagan
administration found itself relatively powerless to influence Soviet action
not only in Afghanistan but also in Poland. In response to the early 1980s
crisis in the latter country, for instance, Reagan was able only to impose lim-
ited sanctions and organize symbolic acts such as national candlelit vigils.184
But the gap between Reagan’s vociferous anti-Soviet rhetoric and his actual
Soviet policy can be seen most clearly in his response to the shooting down
of Korean Airlines Flight 007 over Soviet airspace on September 1, 1983.
Reagan condemned the killing of 269 civilians aboard the South Korean
jumbo jet as a ‘horrifying act of violence’ and an ‘appalling and wanton mis-
deed’.185 Reagan believed this ‘barbaric act’ was a ‘crime against humanity’
and questioned the nature of Soviet civilization and whether they valued
human life as much as other nations.186 In an address to the nation he had
largely written himself, Reagan laboured home the point that he had been
right to call the Soviet Union an evil empire. He said that by shooting down
a defenceless airliner the Soviet Union had launched an attack

against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations
among people everywhere. It was an act of barbarism, born of a society
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 123

which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life
and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations.187

But despite the ferocity of Reagan’s verbal condemnations, the US was

notably restrained in the action it took in response.
Reagan was careful to tell the nation that it ‘would be easy to think in
terms of vengeance, but that is not a proper answer’.188 It was not the proper
answer partly because the administration saw an opportunity to firmly take
the moral high ground. It was also the case, though, that short of risking
full-scale war there was very little that could be done that involved wield-
ing the full power of the United States. As Carter had found when the Soviet
Union occupied Afghanistan and Johnson had realized when Soviet tanks
rolled into Prague, the United States’ ability to respond effectively to what
were regarded as aggressive Soviet acts was severely limited. No amount of
strong rhetoric from the Reagan administration could change this funda-
mental fact of the Cold War. In his response to the shooting down of
KAL 007, Reagan told the nation: ‘We can start preparing ourselves for what
John F. Kennedy called a long twilight struggle’ with the Soviet Union.189
But that struggle would not and could not involve the use of America’s mil-
itary might to force the Soviets to change their ways. Reagan himself recog-
nized, in fact, that his actions must be more reserved than his rhetoric. In a
private meeting with his foreign policy advisers, Reagan made clear that he
did not believe the US should overreact to the Soviet action: ‘The world will
react to this. It’s important that we do not do anything that jeopardizes the
long-term relationship with the Soviet Union.’190 It is clear from this state-
ment that even when his public rhetoric was at its most vociferous, privately
Reagan was aware that a more conciliatory approach to the Soviet Union
was required. The US, therefore, resorted to formal condemnations and
demands for a full explanation and apology from the Soviet government;
the suspension of all Aeroflot activity in the United States; the encouraging
of other nations to suspend flights to the Soviet Union; and symbolic acts
such as declaring a national day of mourning for KAL 007’s victims. But the
administration refused to suspend arms talks with the Soviet Union or break
off other diplomatic activity and claimed the ‘most effective, lasting action’
would be to simply ‘go forward with America’s program to remain strong’.191
As with so much of his foreign policy, Reagan talked tough with the Soviet
Union, particularly during his first term, but this did not mean that US
actions were also more belligerent than in previous administrations. As the
case of KAL 007 shows, the Reagan administration was just as constrained
by the unthinkable threat of actual war with the Soviet Union and, there-
fore, maintained open diplomatic channels no matter how tense the
rhetorical sparring between the White House and the Kremlin became.
Reagan’s anti-Soviet rhetoric was part of his illusion-making. By openly
criticizing the Soviet Union, Reagan was able to accentuate the positive ele-
ments of US society and culture and, therefore, help bolster American
124 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

confidence. But standing tall did not mean the US was prepared to use its
military might directly against the Soviet Union. The limits on American
power remained, even though, through his rhetoric, Reagan seemed able to
resurrect much of America’s self-image.

Rhetoric vs reality II: Reagan and exceptionalism

Reagan was particularly adept at portraying the US as an exceptional nation

that was once again conducting itself in accordance with the finest tradi-
tions of its fundamental values and principles. He claimed: ‘We’ve tried to
bring a new honesty and moral purposefulness to our foreign policy.’192 The
reality of American actions during his administration, however, did not
always live up to the high standards of his rhetoric. This inconsistency can
be best illustrated by returning to Reagan’s policies towards El Salvador and
Nicaragua.
Reagan appealed to the American belief in exceptionalism by describing
those whose cause he supported in Central America as ‘freedom fighters’. In
a radio address in August 1984, Reagan attempted to clarify the administra-
tion’s policy towards Central America:

We support the elected Government of El Salvador against Communist-

backed guerrillas who would take over the country by force. And we
oppose the unelected Government of Nicaragua, which supports those
guerrillas with weapons and ammunition. Now that, of course, puts us in
sympathy with those Nicaraguans who are trying to restore the democ-
ratic promises made during the revolution, the so-called contras.193

Reagan not only referred to the contras as freedom fighters, but also com-
pared them to America’s own revolutionaries who 200 years earlier had
struggled for ‘freedom, democracy, independence, and liberation from
tyranny’.194 Reagan claimed it was the duty of the US to support the cause
of the contras because they ‘are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers’.195
To turn away would be ‘to betray our centuries-old dedication to supporting
those who struggle for freedom’.196 In what became known as the Reagan
Doctrine, the President argued that ‘we must not break faith with those who
are risking their lives – on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua –
to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours
from birth’.197
Reagan, therefore, counselled support for the contras because he claimed
they were fighting for the same values and principles upon which the
United States was founded. In 1986, however, contra leader Enrique
Bermúdez admitted that the contras’ objectives were not to ‘foster democra-
tic reforms’ but to ‘heighten repression’.198 The previous year, American
lawyer Reed Brody had uncovered over 200 abuses committed by contras
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 125

between 1982 and 1985 including ‘assassination, torture, rape, kidnapping

and mutilation of civilians’. In March 1985, the human rights group
Americas Watch also condemned the contras for ‘the deliberate use of terror’.
Any civilians who helped the Sandinistas were considered combatants by
the contras and, therefore, legitimate targets.199 Reagan’s ‘freedom fighters’
were certainly far from beyond reproach and the comparison with the
Founding Fathers seemed to critics wholly inappropriate.
In support of the contras’ cause, Reagan also authorized activities that were
inconsistent with the values and principles for which he claimed they were
fighting. Although Reagan and his advisers denied it, supporting the contras
was tantamount to advocating the overthrow of a legitimate government
that the US itself had recognized under the previous administration. Such
an approach appeared hypocritical when the administration was also con-
demning guerrilla groups in El Salvador for attempting to fulfil a compara-
ble goal. Yet such policies were consistent with the influential distinctions
identified by Reagan’s Ambassador to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, which
allowed support for anti-communist authoritarian regimes such as that in
El Salvador while finding opposition to totalitarian communist regimes
morally acceptable.200 Reagan coupled this rationale with his belief that all
US action must be, by definition, moral because the United States was the
most moral nation on earth. Using these beliefs as a starting point, Reagan
was able to accept any action that furthered his Central American objectives
as being morally justifiable – even acts that broke federal or international
law. That the Reagan administration was capable of such unexceptional
behaviour became most apparent in late March and early April 1984 when
the Nicaraguan government complained formally to the UN and the World
Court that the US had conducted illegal acts of war including the mining of
Nicaraguan harbours.
In its final judgment on June 27, 1986, the World Court cited the US for
violating international law. The court ruled that the Reagan administration

by training, arming, equipping, financing and supplying the contra

forces or otherwise encouraging, supporting and aiding military and
paramilitary activities in and against Nicaragua, has acted, against the
Republic of Nicaragua, in breach of its obligation under customary
international law not to intervene in the affairs of another State.

The court condemned a series of specific US actions, including the covert

mining of the harbours and the imposition of a trade embargo, and called
upon the US to ‘immediately cease and refrain from all such acts’. The court
also ruled that the US was ‘under obligation to make reparation’ to
Nicaragua for all ‘injury’ incurred.201
The Reagan administration ignored the ruling, having already refused to
recognize the World Court’s jurisdiction over its activities in Central
126 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

America, and boycotting the proceedings. The administration argued that its
activities in support of the contras were justified as self-defence in response
to Nicaraguan support for the rebels in El Salvador. The majority on the
World Court were not the only ones, however, to disagree with the admin-
istration’s argument. The mining of Nicaraguan harbours met with particu-
larly strong opposition at home and abroad. The covert action, carried out
by the CIA under Reagan’s approval, was roundly condemned within both
the House and the Senate. Even Reagan’s conservative ally, Barry Goldwater,
heavily criticized the administration for ‘violating international law’ and
perpetrating ‘an act of war’. The New York Times compared the action to the
torpedoing of neutral shipping by German U-boats in the Second World War
and called it ‘Illegal, Deceptive and Dumb’. Shultz, who had earlier opposed
such action and claims not to have known of its eventual execution, con-
cludes the ‘mining episode was a political disaster for the administration’.202
Contrary to Reagan’s rhetoric, the conduct of the administration’s policy
towards Central America can be regarded as inconsistent with the belief that
the US is an exceptional nation. As the Iran-Contra affair came to light in
late 1986, it became apparent that the gap between what the Reagan admin-
istration said and what it actually did was far wider than imagined. The com-
plex web of intrigue surrounding the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for
hostages and the subsequent diversion of illegal funds to the contras has
been explored well elsewhere.203 The important point to make here is that
the revelations threw substantial doubt over Reagan’s claims that the US
could stand proud, that its strength and prestige in the world were once more
assured, and that the American people could trust their leaders to conduct
policy consistent with their traditional values and principles. By agreeing to
trade arms for hostages with Iran, Reagan had misled the American people
and broken his solemn promise that ‘America will never make concessions to
terrorists – to do so would only invite more terrorism’.204 By diverting money
to the contras, whether with or without the president’s knowledge, the admin-
istration had ignored the will of the Congress and the wishes of the American
public in an effort to pursue its objectives in Central America. Much of the
dishonesty, immorality and corruption that had characterized the Vietnam
and Watergate era was resurrected by the Iran-Contra affair. Reagan had often
said that deeds mattered more than words. As his popularity rating plum-
meted in the wake of the Iran-Contra revelations it appeared that he was right.
In December 1986, 71 per cent of the respondents to a Harris poll felt let down
by the president. Most tellingly, the number of Americans who believed
Reagan could ‘continue to inspire confidence’ fell from 66 per cent to 43 per
cent. Writing in the Washington Post, Lou Cannon summed up the depth of
public disappointment in Reagan’s involvement in Iran-Contra: ‘The betrayal
seemed greater because the betrayer was Reagan, who had spent 50 years
insinuating himself into the national consciousness as a believable character
who was America’s best version of itself.’205 Ronald Reagan, the president who
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 127

perhaps more than any other embodied the belief in American exceptional-
ism, had shown himself to be just as fallible as the nation that he led.

Conclusions

It is clear that Reagan was a true believer in the missionary strand of

American exceptionalism. The belief that the United States has a special role
to play in human history is central to his own personal beliefs system and,
therefore, provided the framework within which most of his policy making
was conducted. It is no surprise, then, to find that he frequently couched
his administration’s policies and actions in terms that were consistent with
the belief in exceptionalism and appealed to the public’s own faith in that
belief. A larger question also needs to be answered, however. Did Ronald
Reagan succeed in restoring American confidence and so revive the public’s
faith in American exceptionalism?
At least at the rhetorical level, Reagan enabled Americans to speak confi-
dently about themselves again. In his own pronouncements, Reagan mea-
sured the degree to which he considered Americans had recovered from the
self-doubt he believed had paralysed the nation prior to his election. In
1981, he spoke of the crisis of confidence in the US as a ‘temporary aberra-
tion’ from which the American people had recovered and were now under-
going a ‘spiritual renewal’.206 In 1982, despite the deep recession, Reagan
believed many Americans had regained their confidence that things would
get better again.207 By 1983, Reagan could claim that ‘America is on the
mend’.208 He was convinced that: ‘Even with all our recent economic
hardships, I believe a feeling of optimism is entering our national con-
sciousness … and that an era of unity and national renewal is upon us.’209
Then in 1984, the rallying cry of the Reagan administration was ‘America is
back’. In his State of the Union address, Reagan declared: ‘America is back,
standing tall, looking to the eighties with courage, confidence and hope.’
Reagan believed the US was once again the greatest nation on earth and that
‘America’s new strength, confidence, and purpose are carrying hope and
opportunity far from our shores’.210 Reagan celebrated what he called the
‘new patriotism’ at every given opportunity, most grandly at the 1984
Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and again at the rededication of the Statue
of Liberty in 1986. Such events symbolized, for Reagan, the success of his
attempts to revive public faith in ‘the values, the principles, and ideas that
made America great’.211 Upon leaving office in January 1989, Reagan
believed he had helped restore America’s ‘morale’, and left the country
‘More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago’.212
Yet, as was so often the case with Reagan’s rhetoric, his optimism concealed
a more complex reality. As Jerry Hagstrom observes in his assessment of
post-Reagan America: ‘For every Reagan success, there was a great failure.’213
128 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

On the domestic front, Reagan had fulfilled his first priority by reviving
the American economy. Reagan left office celebrating 72 straight months of
economic growth dating back to January 1983 – the longest peacetime eco-
nomic recovery cycle of the century. Unemployment was the lowest it had
been for a decade and a half and inflation was down two-thirds from its
highest point under Carter. Reagan had presided over the creation of 19 mil-
lion new jobs, a technological boom, and unprecedented prosperity that saw
the ranks of the multi-millionaires swell to over a hundred thousand. But
despite appearances, all was not well with the American dream. Eighties
prosperity had come at a heavy price. Budget and trade deficits soared, not
least as a result of Reagan’s massive defence build-up, and the US was trans-
formed from the world’s largest creditor to a net international debtor nation
for the first time since the Second World War. By late 1987, US foreign debt
had reached $368 billion. The prosperity of the Reagan era also failed to
benefit the American population as a whole. Indeed, income and wealth
inequality grew ever wider during the Reagan presidency. The nation’s
wealth became increasingly concentrated among the richest Americans. In
1986, the top 10 per cent of households controlled 68 per cent of US family
net worth while the top half of 1 per cent of households accounted for
26.9 per cent. In terms of average after-tax family income, these households
fared phenomenally well under Reagan with the top 10 per cent gaining
24.4 per cent between 1977 and 1987 while the top 1 per cent gained a stag-
gering 74.2 per cent. But official government figures showed that all other
Americans made relative losses in family income during the Reagan years
with the lowest 10 per cent faring worst with a fall of some 14.8 per cent.
The Reagan boom did benefit the most affluent fifth of Americans, but it was
at the expense of the remaining 80 per cent of the population.214 The
Reagan administration also demonstrated an unwillingness or inability to
deal effectively with growing societal problems such as crime, homelessness,
racial tension, drugs, AIDS, and other issues such as health, education and
the environment.
In foreign policy, as we have seen, substantial questions remained over the
appropriate application of American power in international affairs and the
use of military force in particular. Reagan had shown a willingness to
employ force but only under very specific conditions. No amount of rhetoric
could overcome the fact that genuine limits to the scope and effectiveness
of American power still existed.
One of Reagan’s greatest triumphs appears to have been his success in
negotiating the first ever reductions in nuclear arms with the Soviet Union
and, through his anti-communist policies, allegedly providing the impetus
for the end of the Cold War. As discussed above, this latter point is highly
debatable. Although the 1987 INF Treaty was a laudable, landmark agree-
ment, which laid the groundwork for further reductions in nuclear arsenals,
 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’ 129

Reagan’s defence policy and his approach to superpower relations is not

unproblematic.
Reagan played a dangerous game during his first term in office. His belli-
cose statements about the Soviet Union came at a time of great instability
in Moscow as the leadership of the Communist Party passed shakily from
one generation to another and, as Reagan himself noted, the Soviet econ-
omy suffered great strain. Although Reagan insists his rhetoric did not
worsen the Cold War or make an actual war more likely, the opportunities
for misunderstandings and disagreements to escalate to armed confronta-
tion were greatly increased by his bravado and arms build-up. The war scare
that swept Europe in late 1983 was certainly a genuine response to increas-
ingly strained tensions, as the Soviets shot down KAL 007, the Americans
invaded Grenada, the deployment of cruise missiles began in Western
Europe, and the Soviets walked out of arms negotiations in Geneva. Reagan
was risking a great deal in order to reassert American strength and moral
superiority.
Reagan did, of course, change his attitude towards the Soviet Union by the
time of his second term. That he believed Gorbachev to be a different kind
of Soviet leader was certainly a factor. Reagan’s reluctance to meet with a
Soviet leader disappeared almost as soon as Gorbachev came to power. Yet
Reagan offered to have talks with Gorbachev before the new Soviet leader
had the chance to prove his character. As we have seen, it was not simply
Reagan’s fondness for Gorbachev that caused his change of tack towards the
Soviet Union. It appears that the war scares and his overwhelming personal
desire to end the nuclear threat caused Reagan to tone down his rhetoric.
Also, by 1984 he believed the US had regained its position of strength in the
world and could now afford to negotiate with the Soviet Union without
appearing weak.
Despite the successes of his second term, Reagan’s Soviet policy was not
without its costs. Reagan had insisted that achieving renewed strategic
strength relative to the Soviet Union was essential before fruitful negotiations
were possible. But this approach actually weakened the US position in the
world due to the detrimental long-term economic effects of Reagan’s arms
build-up and the attendant budget deficits and mounting national debt.
Reagan’s rhetoric and posturing not only came close to irreparably damaging
relations with the Soviet Union but also strained relations within the Western
Alliance. Finally, his obsessive commitment to SDI nearly scuppered any
chance of reaching an arms reduction agreement with the Soviet Union and
could also have triggered an even more dangerous and economically dam-
aging arms race. As with domestic policy, Reagan’s successes in strategic
policy and superpower relations were ambiguous and won at a heavy price.
Reagan’s claim that he was pursuing a foreign policy rooted in the values
and principles upon which the US was founded was also exposed as artifice
by his covert war in Central America and the policy of selling arms to the
130 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

pariah state of Iran in exchange for hostage releases. Such activities fed into
the lingering doubts, which Reagan had strived so hard to overcome, about
whether the US could still be considered an exceptional nation. For many
Americans, Iran-Contra in particular exposed the gap between Reagan’s
rhetoric and the reality of American behaviour in the world.
Yet despite the growing economic and social inequalities, the ambiguous
foreign policy successes, and the evidence of unexceptional administration
behaviour, Ronald Reagan still left the White House with a final approval
rating higher than any president since Franklin Roosevelt.215 Reagan was a
highly persuasive president who was able, despite all the evidence to the
contrary, to convince a sizeable majority of the American public to share his
belief that the US was in reality the greatest nation on earth. Theirs was a
nation whose strength and morality could no longer be questioned and
whose people should be confident in their own ability to achieve whatever
they wanted in life. The United States, Reagan told Americans, was indeed
a truly exceptional nation and a shining city on a hill. Lou Cannon con-
cludes his study of Reagan by arguing that the president’s ‘greatest service
was in restoring the respect of Americans for themselves and their own gov-
ernment after the traumas of Vietnam and Watergate, the frustration of the
Iran hostage crisis and a succession of seemingly failed presidencies’.216 The
American people believed in Reagan’s optimism and his vision of the great-
ness of their nation even when they did not approve of his specific policies
or were critical of the mistakes he made. They believed Reagan because they
shared his conviction that the United States has a special role to play in the
world, even if they did not all agree on what that role should be. Reagan’s
success, or at least his continued popularity despite his policy failures, lay in
his embodiment of what Americans believe to be exceptional about their
nation: optimism, dedication to freedom, and hope in a better future. As
Reagan said in his Farewell Address: ‘as long as we remember our first prin-
ciples and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours.’217 Reagan’s
greatest achievement was to make Americans feel good about themselves,
no matter how illusory that feeling might have been. But could this renewed
sense of confidence in America’s promise survive once its greatest protagonist
had left the White House?
6
George Bush – the ‘Vision Thing’ and
the New World Order

George Herbert Walker Bush came to the White House in January 1989
determined to consolidate the achievements he believed his predecessor had
made. During his presidential campaign, Bush made clear that he saw no
need to ‘remake society’ or take the country in ‘radical new directions’. No
doubt eager to maintain the votes of Reagan’s supporters, Bush emphasized
his dedication to completing ‘the mission we started in 1980’ when he
had become Reagan’s choice for vice president. Bush would be what David
Mervin has termed a ‘guardian president’: one who seeks to protect and pre-
serve the status quo while recognizing the need for only marginal change.1
Americans expected their new president, with his emphasis on prudence
and caution, to be far more pragmatic and competent than they perceived
Reagan to have been. Bush was more interested in the detail of policy than
his predecessor and had a preference for political compromise, while Reagan
had placed ideological considerations first.2

The ‘vision thing’

The most frequently aired criticism of President Bush, however, is that he

lacked vision. As argued in the previous chapter, the main reason for
Reagan’s personal popularity was his ability to motivate his fellow citizens
to believe in themselves and in a brighter future for the United States.
Americans like their leaders to tell them where the country is going to and
how they are going to get there. George Bush, however, did not believe in
the need to present a vision of America’s future by laying out a rhetorical
road map or master plan. As he declared during his campaign for the White
House: ‘I am a practical man. I like what’s real. I’m not much for the airy
and the abstract. I like what works. I am not a mystic, and I do not yearn to
lead a crusade.’ Bush exhibited what Mervin calls an ‘extravagant lack of
interest in ideas’ or what the president himself pejoratively termed ‘the
vision thing’.3

131
132 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Bush’s problem with the ‘vision thing’ led many critics to accuse him
of being directionless, without convictions or even consistent policy prefer-
ences, and unable to explain why or how he was doing things.4 The contrast
with Reagan’s approach made the Bush administration appear even more
rudderless. As Fred Barnes put it in the New Republic: ‘Reagan was an ideo-
logical architect. Bush is a bricklayer.’ 5
Even though US presidents tend to take a pragmatic approach to actual
policy, it is usual for them to articulate some kind of vision or theme for
their presidency. Most candidates achieve this during their presidential cam-
paigns, while others develop an overarching theme during their inaugural
address or other speeches early in their presidency. This was certainly true
of post-Watergate presidents, with Ford calling for ‘a time to heal’, Carter
seeking to restore the nation’s ‘moral compass’ and Reagan declaring ‘an era
of national renewal’. It can be argued that Bush faced a situation unlike that
of his post-Vietnam predecessors. Reagan had largely succeeded in restoring
American confidence. When Bush came to power there was no longer a need
to call for renewal or to have an all-encompassing theme for his presidency.
The US was perceived by Americans to have been restored to its place as
leader of the free world and, in the face of the demise of the communist
threat, that position stood largely unchallenged. Bush was the perfect leader
for such a time because he was committed to maintaining the status quo.
Such an argument has its supporters,6 but the perception of the restored
power and stability of the US in the post-Reagan era was also open to ques-
tion. In 1989, it remained unclear whether the Cold War would come to a
peaceful conclusion or whether communist regimes would violently oppose
an end to their rule. Many perplexing questions faced the US and its allies,
such as how post-communist states could renew or form cooperative ties
with the West and how security forces and strategies could be adapted to
deal with threats beyond the Cold War. On the domestic front, major doubts
were being aired about the strength of the American economic recovery
under Reagan, and its far-reaching consequences. A debate raged within elite
and popular circles over whether the US was in relative decline as an inter-
national power as the world democratized, emphasis shifted away from
military prowess as a measure of global power, and American economic
dominance faced threats from Japan and Germany.7 Americans, according
to this perspective, needed a leader who could assure them that their special
role in the world remained intact and who would find a way to deal with
the uncertainties that were developing at home and abroad.
Given the depth of criticism that Bush lacked vision, it is perhaps sur-
prising to find that many of his speeches did in fact contain familiar rhetor-
ical references to the special nature of the United States. Bush’s advisers and
speechwriters appear to have recognized that, despite the president’s admis-
sion that he was ‘not comfortable with rhetoric for rhetoric’s sake’,8 it was
necessary to present the public with reassurances that he, like Reagan,
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 133

believed the US to be a special nation with a special place in the world. In

his Inaugural Address, written by Peggy Noonan who had also been respon-
sible for Reagan’s Farewell Address, Bush declared that the US was a ‘proud,
free nation, decent and civil, a place we cannot help but love’. Americans,
he said, ‘know in our hearts, not loudly and proudly but as a simple fact,
that this country has meaning beyond what we see, and that our strength
is a force for good’. Bush reaffirmed that ‘America is never wholly herself
unless she is engaged in high moral principal’. He even went so far as to
rhetorically set out a purpose for his presidency. Bush said he would strive
to ‘make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world’.
Admittedly, elsewhere in the speech, Bush’s rhetoric became rather strained,
mixing metaphors more incongruously than Reagan would ever have
allowed. His assertion that ‘a new breeze is blowing’ in the world as totali-
tarianism was swept away and that the ‘future seems a door you can walk
right through into a room called tomorrow’ were hardly the kind of rousing
rallying cry to which Americans had become accustomed under Reagan. But
the Inaugural Address does show that Bush utilized much the same tradi-
tional rhetoric that had characterized the public pronouncements of his
predecessors.9
Throughout the early months of his presidency, Bush’s speeches contin-
ued to contain phrases that reinforced the belief that the US was an excep-
tional nation. Bush echoed Reagan when he told the Congress in February
1989:

There are voices who say that America’s best days have passed, that we’re
bound by constraints, threatened by problems, surrounded by troubles
which limit our ability to hope. Well, tonight I remain full of hope. We
Americans have only begun on our mission of goodness and greatness.

Bush reiterated the belief that there was no challenge the US could not meet:
‘Let all Americans remember that no problem of human making is too great
to be overcome by human ingenuity, human energy, and the untiring hope
of the human spirit.’ 10
As communism waned, Bush saw what he considered as the worldwide
adoption of American principles as confirmation that the US had been
reserved an exceptional place in human history. He took pride in proclaim-
ing that: ‘Never before in this century have our values of freedom, democ-
racy, and economic opportunity been such a powerful and intellectual force
around the globe.’ 11 Bush believed the US should celebrate the triumph of
that ‘particular, peculiar, very American ideal: freedom’. Bush recognized that
Americans had not created democracy but he did believe it was a ‘gift’
that had been granted to generations of Americans to preserve and pass on
to others. It was a duty of the US, therefore, to continue to do whatever it
could to ‘help others attain the freedom that we cherish’.12
134 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Yet although Bush used much of the same rhetoric that Reagan and other
presidents had used before him, the public image that he lacked vision per-
sisted. A major part of the problem, several commentators noted, was not in
the use of words themselves but in the way Bush delivered them. Thomas
Cronin observed that Bush ‘is rhetorically and oratorically a handicapped
man’. Robert Novak remarked that Bush ‘lacks an essential weapon of poli-
tics: the ability to stir the nation with words’.13 Particularly since the advent
of radio, and even more so television, US presidents have found that much
political advantage can be gained from making direct appeals to the public
though national addresses. Bush did not feel comfortable with such neces-
sities of modern day American politics. He lacked the natural ability to
communicate effectively with the American people that his predecessor
possessed in such abundance. Mervin sums up Bush’s problem well:

His fractured syntax, his unwillingness to take direction from media

advisers, his ‘hot’ rather than ‘cool’ persona, his obvious discomfort in
front of television cameras and his oratorical limitations combined to
make him a less than effective communicator.14

This inability to convey his thoughts and priorities effectively to the

American public, despite making use of familiar rhetoric, compounded the
sense that Bush lacked a masterplan or indeed any firm convictions about
what would be best for America’s future. As we shall see, there were occa-
sions during his presidency, particularly following the Panama invasion and
during the Persian Gulf crisis, when Bush was able to make effective use of
the bully pulpit and rally the public around his foreign policy. These were
exceptions rather than the rule, however. At other times, his pragmatic, con-
servative, usually reactive approach to foreign and domestic policy-making
tested the patience of much of the American public and Bush’s critics.

The Bush foreign policy

George Bush’s foreign policy was, by his own admission, characterized by

prudence and caution. Upon taking office, he ordered the NSC to undertake
a 90-day systemic review of US foreign and defence policy. The lengthy
strategic review compounded the impression that the administration lacked
initiative. The sense of inaction in the face of international developments
was also not helped by the Senate rejection of Bush’s initial nomination for
Secretary of Defense, John Tower.15
The President’s foreign policy team eventually comprised at its centre
Secretary of State James A. Baker III, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney,
and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. General Colin Powell com-
pleted the team in September 1989 when he became Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. All four men knew or had worked with each other and Bush
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 135

in previous administrations and had developed close working and personal

relationships.16 By assembling a core foreign policy team who were already
acquainted and clearly able to work with each other, Bush carefully avoided
the kind of infighting that had disrupted the foreign and defence policy
process in the Reagan, Carter and even Ford administrations. There were dis-
agreements but they tended to be over tactics rather than fundamentals and
remained private rather than leaking out into the public domain. While
such arrangements made for a more harmonious foreign policy inner sanc-
tum, they did also lead to criticisms that the decision making process was
too secretive and insulated from external sources of opinion and advice.17
Between April and May 1989, with the strategic review completed, Bush
gave a series of foreign policy speeches that outlined the priorities and objec-
tives of his administration. There would be six central elements to the Bush
foreign policy: (1) to promote democracy and the free market throughout
the world; (2) to encourage the success of glasnost and perestroika in the
Soviet Union; (3) to curb the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biolog-
ical weapons; (4) to ‘check the ambitions of renegade regimes’; (5) to
enhance the ability of America’s allies to defend themselves; and (6) to
encourage greater stability in the developing world. Central to American
defence policy would be the maintenance of an ‘effective deterrent’ coupled
with arms reductions that could achieve stability at the ‘lowest feasible level
of armaments’. Bush saw such an agenda as moving US foreign policy
‘beyond containment’ in a prudent manner.18 This cautious approach was
most apparent in his handling of the transformation of the Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe.

The end of the Cold War

Bush was not as convinced as his predecessor that Gorbachev was leading
the Soviet Union away from its communist past and towards a positive rela-
tionship with the West. It was too early, according to Bush, for the US to be
entirely sure of Soviet intentions. He advocated, therefore, from the outset
of his administration, a Soviet policy based on ‘Prudence and common
sense’.19 The US would do whatever it could to encourage the success of
Soviet reforms and the democratization of Eastern Europe but Bush would
not drop America’s guard before he was convinced any changes made were
permanent. During a trip to Europe in July 1989, Bush would not be drawn
on whether the Cold War was over or whether the West had ‘won’ it. He
reminded reporters that there were ‘big differences, still’ between Western
democracies and the Soviet Union. The US and her allies would ‘encourage
the change’ but Bush was certain he would only be able to ‘answer your
question in maybe a few more years more definitively’.20 Even when East
German border controls were suspended and the Berlin Wall opened on
November 9, 1989, he gave a muted response. Bush said he ‘welcome[d] the
136 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

decision’ and termed it ‘a good development’. He said it was ‘probably’ a

step towards what Gorbachev was calling a common European home. When
a reporter observed that the falling of the Berlin Wall was ‘a great victory for
our side in the big East–West battle’ and asked why Bush did not seem
elated, the president replied simply, ‘I am not an emotional kind of guy.’
Pushed further on the matter he allowed himself to admit, ‘I’m very
pleased.’ 21
It was hardly the stirring reaction Americans might have expected to hear
from their president as the single greatest symbol of the Cold War division
of Europe dramatically yet peacefully came to an end. As communist
regimes lost power across Eastern Europe under the compliant gaze of the
Soviet leadership, the American president remained cautious in actions and
in words. House majority leader, Democrat Richard Gephardt, complained
that: ‘At the very time freedom and democracy are receiving standing ova-
tions in Europe, our president is sitting politely in the audience with little
to say and even less to contribute.’ In the last week of November 1989,
Newsweek agreed that ‘George Bush’s reaction to the stirring events in
Eastern Europe this fall has been remarkably bland. Ronald Reagan would
have trumpeted the triumph of democracy, gloating over the demise of the
“evil empire” .’22

Vietnam and the use of force

Given the caution with which George Bush approached foreign policy, he
could be expected to be even less willing to employ military force than his
post-Vietnam predecessors. Yet Bush was determined that his administration
would finally move beyond the American defeat in Vietnam. In his
Inaugural Address, he admitted that the Vietnam War ‘cleaves us still. But,
friends, that war began in earnest a quarter of a century ago, and surely the
statute of limitation has been reached. This is a fact: The final lesson of
Vietnam is that no great nation can long afford to be sundered by a mem-
ory.’ 23 Bush believed the American ability to resolve foreign crises should
not be hampered by an unwillingness to utilize the considerable power of
the US military. He claimed to ‘prefer the diplomatic approach’ but also
believed ‘there is no substitute for a nation’s ability to defend its ideals and
interests’. Bush was convinced that ‘Diplomacy and military capability are
complementary’ and that American efforts at solving international disputes
peacefully would be enhanced if they were backed by a willingness to resort
to force.24
Although Bush’s foreign policy team did not have the divisiveness that
had troubled the Carter and Reagan administrations, there were differences
of opinion concerning the appropriate use of force. National Security
Advisor Brent Scowcroft believed the US could ‘choke on such strictures’ as
the Vietnam syndrome and the Weinberger Doctrine. For Scowcroft, war was
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 137

a legitimate tool of foreign policy that should be threatened and applied

when necessary. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney showed no reluctance
either, to consider force as a policy option.25 Secretary of State James Baker
was more cautious. In his memoirs Bush claims that Baker ‘never backed
away from any decision to use force or planning for it’. But Baker was deter-
mined that diplomacy should be given every possible chance to work before
force was used and was concerned about entering conflicts that could see
the US getting ‘bogged down’ as they had in Vietnam.26
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell also exhibited a cau-
tious approach to the application of force but appeared willing to recom-
mend military action. On September 20, 1989, at his Senate confirmation
hearing for the chairmanship, Powell was asked what he thought of the
Weinberger Doctrine. Powell admitted Weinberger had provided ‘useful
guidelines’ but added ‘I have never seen them to be a series of steps each one
of which must be met before the Joint Chiefs of Staff will recommend the
use of military force.’ Powell cited Grenada and Libya as examples of how,
in his recent experience, there had been: ‘no hesitancy to use the armed
forces as a political instrument when the mission is clear and when it is
something that has been carefully thought out and considered and all the
ramifications of using military forces have been considered.’ 27 Although
Powell may not have believed that the Weinberger Doctrine provided the
definitive guide to the appropriate use of American military force, this was
the first of many expressions of his own view that there were limits to
American power that should be observed. Indeed, by the time Powell left his
post his own views on the use of force came to be known as the Powell
Doctrine.
Although Powell and Baker held reservations about when and how to
apply US military force, Bush was determined that it should be considered
as a viable option for resolving international crises. Yet, as the following
analysis demonstrates, whenever the Bush administration authorized the
use of force abroad it was within the limits that had restricted the actions of
other post-Vietnam presidents.

Panama

The Bush administration’s first major use of military force was in the inva-
sion of Panama on December 20, 1989. General Manuel Noriega was head
of the Panama Defense Force (PDF), the true power behind a series of
Panamanian governments, and a former ally and, indeed, employee of the
US government. He was now wanted by the US Justice Department on drug
trafficking, money laundering and racketeering charges, and his arrest was
an official foreign policy objective. In May 1989, Noriega nullified democ-
ratic elections when it became apparent that American-supported opposi-
tion candidate Guillermo Endara would defeat Noriega’s puppet president.
138 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

US public opinion was incensed by television pictures showing Endara’s

vice-presidential candidate Guillermo Ford being physically beaten by PDF
soldiers at post-election demonstrations. A Newsweek-Gallup poll found 71
per cent of Americans believed that it was now very important to the US that
Noriega give up power. However, only 32 per cent favoured a ‘US military
invasion to overthrow Noriega’. The clear preference of 81 per cent of those
polled was that the Bush administration should ‘persuade other nations in
the region to pressure Noriega to surrender’.28 In October 1989, Bush was
heavily criticized in the media and Congress for not helping an attempted
coup against Noriega. As a result, the administration stepped up planning
and preparation for a possible intervention to seize Noriega and overthrow
the PDF.29
On December 16, 1989, the PDF provided what Powell describes as ‘unig-
norable provocation’.30 An off-duty American soldier was shot dead by
members of the PDF at a roadblock in Panama City. Another serviceman and
his wife who witnessed the shooting were arrested, interrogated, beaten, and
threatened with sexual abuse. Two days earlier, Noriega’s self-appointed leg-
islature had declared that Panama was ‘in a state of war’ with the US.31 It
now appeared that the PDF was taking the declaration seriously. All the
president’s key foreign policy advisers agreed that the time had come to use
force to remove Noriega, so Bush authorized an invasion of Panama.
The administration concluded it had clear strategic and political reasons
for intervening in Panamanian affairs. The US had a duty to protect the
Panama Canal and ensure the safety of the 35,000 Americans living and
working in Panama (including 13,000 military personnel). The prospect of
deposing a troublesome national leader was also an attractive one. The
unspoken motivation was also, perhaps, that embarking on a successful
military operation would go some way towards silencing critics who
accused Bush of being a directionless wimp in foreign policy. When Bush
announced the operation publicly, however, he emphasized not only what
he regarded as legitimate strategic and political reasons for the intervention
but also moral justifications.
Bush informed the Congress that the objectives of the US military action
were ‘to protect American lives, to defend democracy in Panama, to appre-
hend Noriega and bring him to trial on the drug-related charges for which
he was indicted in 1988, and to ensure the integrity of the Panama Canal
Treaties’.32 In a televised address to the nation, Bush detailed Noriega’s and
the PDF’s ‘reckless threats and attacks’ against Americans in Panama and
claimed he ordered military action because: ‘As President, I have no higher
obligation than to safeguard the lives of American citizens.’ Bush also
emphasized that the operation would bring the ‘indicted drug trafficker’
Noriega to justice and restore democracy by enabling the Endara govern-
ment to take up office. The US action, Bush concluded, supported the ‘noble
goals’ of the Panamanians who desired ‘democracy, peace, and the chance
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 139

for a better life in dignity and freedom’.33 Bush thus made attempts to
portray the military intervention as being not only in the interests of the US
but also a benevolent action designed to benefit the Panamanian people. To
reinforce the administration’s claims of moral justification, the original
codename Blue Spoon was dropped in favour of Operation Just Cause.
Powell liked the new name, not only because its ‘inspirational ring’ would
provide a ‘rousing call to arms’, but also because: ‘Even our severest critics
would have to utter “Just Cause” while denouncing us.’ 34
Operation Just Cause achieved its objectives rapidly and with very few
American casualties. A little over six hours after the mission had begun,
Bush was able to inform the American public: ‘Key military objectives have
been achieved. Most organized resistance has been eliminated … [and] the
United States today recognizes the democratically elected government of
President Endara.’ 35 On January 3, 1990, the final objective was achieved
when Noriega emerged from the sanctuary of the Papal Nuncio’s residence,
was taken into custody, and flown to face trial in the United States. Bush
concluded the US had ‘used its resources in a manner consistent with polit-
ical, diplomatic, and moral principles’.36
The administration had gone to some lengths to establish whether its
objectives in Panama could be justified. The Justice Department had pro-
duced a legal opinion which argued that the administration could legally
seize a foreign citizen from a sovereign country if they were wanted on crim-
inal charges in the US even if the action violated customary international
law.37 Bush also insisted to Congress that the action was legally justified in
accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter, the provisions of the Panama
Canal Treaties, and his ‘constitutional authority with respect to the conduct
of foreign relations’.38 But although Bush insisted he had acted in accor-
dance with the War Powers Act, Congress was not in session at the time and,
rather than being consulted about the operation in advance, members of
Congress were informed only once the invasion had begun. As with previ-
ous administrations, the decision to employ force had been taken solely
within the executive.39 Many foreign governments were unmoved by Bush’s
attempts to justify the intervention. The Organization of American States
voted 20–1 to condemn the military action and call for the immediate with-
drawal of US troops. The UN General Assembly passed a similar resolution
by 75 votes to 20.40 Reaction in Panama itself, though, was far more encour-
aging for the administration. In a poll released by CBS on January 5, 1990,
92 per cent of Panamanians claimed to approve of the US action.41
American public support for the intervention was also considerable. A
Newsweek-Gallup poll conducted on December 21, 1989, found 80 per cent
of those polled believed the US was ‘justified … in sending military forces to
invade Panama and overthrow Noriega’, while only 13 per cent disap-
proved.42 Bush’s job approval rating shot up nine points to an almost
unprecedented 80 per cent in January 1990. This was the second highest
140 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

approval rating for any US president in polling history and the highest
rating for a president at the beginning of his second year in office.43
In February, when Bush’s approval rating fell back to 73 per cent (still the
second highest of his administration), Frank Newport of the Gallup organi-
zation argued that foreign policy generally, and the Panama intervention
specifically, were the major factors behind the president’s extraordinary pop-
ularity. The Panama intervention and Noriega’s capture were considered
Bush’s greatest achievement up to that time by twice as many respondents
(18 per cent) as for any other single issue or event. Panama, and the admin-
istration’s policies towards the break-up of the Soviet bloc, were the main con-
tributing factors to the belief of 77 per cent of the public that Bush was
making great progress on handling the problem of keeping the US out of
war.44 The American public greatly favoured and supported the manner in
which Bush had chosen to employ force, as it had with the similarly short and
successful missions in Grenada and Libya under the Reagan administration.
Bush, like his predecessor, had been careful to employ force in a manner
which would meet with the approval of the American public. As we have
seen, he made efforts to establish a just cause with clear and compelling
objectives. The administration was also determined to employ sufficient
force to achieve those objectives swiftly and with minimal American casu-
alties. Bush’s military planners were convinced that Operation Just Cause
would quickly and efficiently achieve all the administration’s stated politi-
cal and military objectives through the use of overwhelming force. The
13,000 US troops already stationed in Panama would be reinforced with a
further 11,000 from the United States. This force, Powell and the Joint
Chiefs were convinced, would be more than a match for the 16,000-member
PDF of whom they believed only 3500 were combat-ready. Such odds would
ensure rapid success and avoid the US becoming embroiled in a protracted
conflict. Powell argued that such a mission held fewer risks than a smaller
operation designed simply to capture Noriega. To use massive force was the
prudent option.45 At his first news conference after the campaign began,
Bush emphasized that he made a specific decision to intervene ‘with enough
force – this was a recommendation of the Pentagon – to be sure that we min-
imize the loss of life on both sides’.46 At the meeting where the decision was
taken to intervene, Scowcroft had warned: ‘There are going to be casualties.
People are going to die.’ Powell concurred that there would be casualties on
both sides, both military and civilians, but he assured Bush: ‘We will do
everything we can to keep them at a minimum.’ 47 American casualties dur-
ing the intervention amounted to 23 dead and 324 wounded. Generally
accepted official sources reported 314 Panamanian military deaths and 202
civilian deaths.48
The relatively low cost of the operation, its rapid and successful conclu-
sion, and the fact that the reinforcements were soon pulled out of Panama,
all contributed to widespread public approval of the operation. As with
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 141

Grenada and Libya before it, Panama had enabled the US to give the appear-
ance of standing tall while still adhering to the requirements of the Vietnam
syndrome. As Powell concludes in his memoirs:

The lessons I absorbed from Panama confirmed all my convictions over

the preceding twenty years, since the days of doubt over Vietnam. Have
a clear political objective and stick to it. Use all the force necessary, and
do not apologize for going in big if that is what it takes. Decisive force
ends wars quickly and in the long run saves lives. Whatever threats we
faced in the future, I intended to make these rules the bedrock of my
military counsel.49

Powell’s doctrine of when and how to apply military force would also be
followed in the response to the greatest foreign policy crisis of the Bush
administration.

The Persian Gulf War

On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded and occupied its southern neighbour

Kuwait. Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein declared that Kuwait was rightfully
a province of Iraq and that the Iraqi action had eradicated a remnant of
nineteenth-century ‘Western colonialism’. The invasion also resolved a
number of more recent disputes between Iraq and Kuwait. In May, Saddam
Hussein had accused Kuwait of declaring war on Iraq by attempting to drive
down the price of oil. Such action would cripple the Iraqi economy, which
was yet to recover from the costly war with Iran during which Kuwait had
loaned Iraq $10 billion. The occupation of Kuwait would also grant Iraq con-
trol of the disputed Rumaila oilfield and provide valuable access to coastal
harbours.50
Whatever Saddam Hussein believed his justifications to be, the interna-
tional reaction to the invasion was immediate and unambiguous. The UN
Security Council, no longer burdened by Cold War divisions, condemned
the invasion by a unanimous vote and demanded an immediate and uncon-
ditional withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from Kuwait. This was the first of
twelve UN resolutions concerning the crisis which culminated in the
November 29 authorization for member states to ‘use all necessary means’
to implement the resolutions if Iraq did not withdraw from Kuwait on or
before January 15, 1991.51 The US led an international coalition of forces
from 28 nations which were deployed initially to defend Saudi Arabia from
attack. Following Iraq’s failure to comply with the UN Resolutions, coalition
forces launched an air campaign on January 16, 1991 to force Iraq from
Kuwait. On February 24, the coalition began a ground offensive which after
a mere four days of fighting resulted in a total Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait
and a temporary ceasefire.
142 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

The Bush administration gave five main strategic, political and economic
reasons why the US must take steps to reverse the Iraqi invasion. First, Bush
argued, the acquisition of territory by force was unacceptable international
behaviour. He insisted that Iraq must not be allowed to benefit from its inva-
sion of Kuwait because: ‘Every use of force unchecked is an invitation to fur-
ther aggression. Every act of aggression unpunished strikes a blow against
the rule of law – and strengthens the forces of chaos and lawlessness that,
ultimately, threaten us all.’ 52 Second, the Iraqi action threatened the
American and global economies. Iraq and Kuwait each held 10 per cent of
the world’s oil reserves and a further 20 per cent could be seized in Saudi
Arabia. Bush’s advisers agreed that oil production and pricing would be
adversely affected unless something was done to curb Iraqi expansion. Baker
warned ominously that an unchecked Iraq could ‘strangle the global eco-
nomic order, determining by fiat whether we all enter a recession or even
the darkness of depression’.53
Third, the seizure of Kuwait would cause considerable disruption to stabil-
ity in the Persian Gulf area. The CIA warned Bush that Jordan, Yemen and
other Arab states would now ‘probably tilt toward’ Iraq. As a result, Israel was
threatened and the Middle East peace process in jeopardy.54 Fourth, Bush was
concerned for the safety of American citizens living in the region. There were
almost four thousand Americans in Kuwait and around five hundred in Iraq.
Bush’s ‘constant worry’ was that ‘we would be presented with a hostage situ-
ation along the lines of the 1979 Tehran embassy crisis’.55 His fears appeared
realized when foreign nationals, including Americans, were detained by the
Iraqis and Saddam Hussein threatened to use them as human shields to
protect potential military targets. After much diplomatic activity, however, all
foreign hostages were released unharmed on December 6, 1990.
Finally, the administration believed that intervention was necessary
because Iraq was on the verge of acquiring a nuclear capability to add to its
developing stock of other weapons of mass destruction, including chemical
and biological weapons. As Iraq was perceived by the administration as an
aggressive and expansionist state it could not be trusted to maintain a
nuclear arsenal as merely a deterrent force. Saddam Hussein’s regime had
already demonstrated its willingness to use chemical weapons in the
Iran–Iraq war and against the Kurdish minority within Iraq. Bush made
clear: ‘We are determined to knock out Saddam Hussein’s nuclear bomb
potential. We will also destroy his chemical weapons facilities.’56
The US could, therefore, draw upon a considerable range of strategic,
political and economic justifications for its stance toward Iraq. However, as
so many times before in US history, the Bush administration also made
attempts to show that its policy was consistent with the tradition of benev-
olence in American foreign policy. In his August 8 address to the nation,
announcing the deployment of US forces to Saudi Arabia, Bush did not
merely lay out the political, strategic and economic reasons for the
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 143

American opposition to Iraq’s action. The US, he argued, would reverse Iraqi
aggression as a matter of moral principle: ‘Standing up for our principle is
an American tradition.’ Bush called upon the belief in American exception-
alism, declaring: ‘As I’ve witnessed throughout my life in both war and
peace, America has never wavered when her purpose is driven by principle.
And on this August day, at home and abroad, I know she will do no less.’ 57
At an NSC meeting at Camp David on August 4, Cheney expressed doubts
that the American public would maintain their support for the administra-
tion’s policy based solely on strategic and economic arguments. Bush was
confident, however, that what he perceived as the moral dimension of the
crisis would help sustain public and international support. He observed,
‘Lots of people are calling [Saddam Hussein] Hitler.’ King Fahd of Saudi
Arabia had offered the comparison in a telephone conversation with Bush the
previous day.58 Bush took up the theme in a series of speeches in which he
drew analogies between Saddam Hussein’s conduct of the invasion and occu-
pation of Kuwait with Hitler’s goals and strategies in the Second World War.
Many critics accused Bush of over-personalizing the conflict by demonizing
Saddam Hussein and making unnecessary and inaccurate comparisons with
Hitler’s regime. Even officials within the administration felt uneasy about the
ferocity of the president’s public denunciations of the Iraqi leader. Powell
in particular was disturbed by Bush’s attempts to turn Saddam Hussein into
the ‘devil incarnate’.59 Scowcroft also recalls in his memoirs: ‘It was clear the
President was becoming emotionally involved in the treatment of Kuwait. He
was deeply sincere, but the impact of some of his rhetoric seemed a bit coun-
terproductive.’ Scowcroft was concerned by press charges that ‘the President
was turning the crisis into a personal vendetta against Saddam’.60
In his memoirs, Bush denies that he held ‘a personal grudge against
Saddam Hussein’. Instead, he argues, ‘I had a deep moral objection to what
he had done and was doing.’ To Bush, the crisis in the Gulf was a case of
‘good versus evil, right versus wrong’, but he insisted:

I think you can be objective about moral judgment, and I think that what
[Saddam Hussein] did can be morally condemned and lead one to the
proper conclusion that it was a matter of good versus evil. Saddam had
become the epitome of evil in taking hostages and in his treatment of the
Kuwaiti people. … [O]ur policy was based on principle, not personalities.

As early as August 8, Bush had been told by the Kuwaiti ambassador that
Iraqi troops in Kuwait were raping women, ‘pillaging and plundering’. On
September 22, Bush wrote in his diary that he had read ‘a horrible intelli-
gence report on the brutal dismembering and dismantling of Kuwait.
Shooting citizens when they are stopped in their cars. Exporting what little
food there is. Brutalizing the homes’. Bush argues in his memoirs that
during this period he ‘began to move from viewing Saddam’s aggression
144 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

exclusively as a dangerous strategic threat and an injustice to its reversal as

a moral crusade’. Bush admits, ‘I became very emotional about the atroci-
ties. They really gave urgency to my desire to do something active in
response.’61 He was determined to use his public pronouncements on the
crisis to help the American people understand the nature of Iraq’s occupa-
tion of Kuwait and the moral imperative of reversing it. When he
announced that allied military action had begun on January 16, 1991, Bush
reiterated, in terms that placed responsibility squarely and singularly on the
Iraqi leader that: ‘Saddam Hussein [has] systematically raped, pillaged, and
plundered a tiny nation, no threat to his own. He subjected the people of
Kuwait to unspeakable atrocities.’62 Bush seems to have emphasized the
moral justifications for American intervention not as a manipulative tool to
ensure public support but because he believed deeply that the Iraqi action
was immoral and must be reversed. But by insisting that ‘this was not a mat-
ter of shades of gray, or of trying to see the other side’s point of view’,63 Bush
ensured that his administration would view all Iraqi actions as absolutely
evil and all American actions as absolutely good. Such Manicheanism was a
typical expression of the belief in American exceptionalism.
While offering the American response to the crisis as evidence of the spe-
cial nature of the United States, Bush was also, rather paradoxically, deter-
mined to show that his actions had full legitimacy because they were backed
by the UN and a coalition of international powers. He admits in his mem-
oirs that he was always ‘prepared to deal with this crisis unilaterally if nec-
essary’. Scowcroft agrees that the administration did not believe it required
a UN mandate. In fact, he admits candidly, UN support simply ‘provided an
added cloak of political cover. Never did we think that without its blessing
we could not or would not intervene’.64 Nevertheless, Bush preferred to
move ahead with the backing of the UN, his coalition partners, and the
Congress. The support of other Arab states and the Soviet Union was neces-
sary partly for strategic reasons, because taking action against Iraq without
such backing could be more damaging to regional stability than leaving the
occupation of Kuwait intact. Military and financial support from nations
such as Britain, France, Germany and Japan would also deflect domestic crit-
icism that the US was paying too high a price for international stability.
Nevertheless, debate did rage within the Congress. Non-binding resolu-
tions supporting US objectives but urging a diplomatic solution were passed
overwhelmingly in both chambers during October. Although the Congress
was united in believing that Iraq must leave Kuwait, the main controversy
was over whether the US should employ force to achieve that objective or
give sanctions longer to work. Congress Members also debated whether they
or the President had the constitutional power to authorize the use of force
in the Gulf. Although political, strategic, economic and constitutional argu-
ments dominated the debate, many of the speakers on both sides of the issue
couched their arguments in familiar terms which evoked the idea of
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 145

American exceptionalism. Republican Senator Bill Roth of Delaware, for

example, emphasized that the situation in the Gulf

requires the exercise of judgment – judgment that finds its source in our
history, philosophy, and cultural ties; in our religious and patriotic con-
victions; in our concepts of morality and our need for security. When
these basic values are examined in the context of the offensive threat
Saddam Hussein has taken in the Middle East, it becomes clear why our
President reacted speedily and in the manner he did.

While Roth’s views drew upon the missionary strand of exceptionalism,

Democratic Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey utilized the exemplar version
of the same notion to argue against the use of force. He stated that: ‘if
America truly hopes to lead the world in a new way … we will lead by the
power of our example, not just by the firepower of our military.’ He
concluded that the US ‘can lead a changing world if we hold fast to our
vision … , steadfast in our principles, patient in our will to meet any chal-
lenge, … imaginative about peaceful solutions, and conscious of our limits
but limitless in our hopes.’ 65 As with previous debates about the American
role in the world, the language of American exceptionalism provided the
basic framework for discussion on both sides of the issue. Critics also raised
the spectre of Vietnam, with Republican conservative Pat Buchanan, for
example, warning that the Gulf crisis ‘has quagmire written all over it’.66
There were also anti-war demonstrations in the US, Europe and elsewhere
that evoked memories of Vietnam. In the Nation magazine, an anti-war
group called Out Now placed an advertisement that asked ‘Must we trade
body bags for oil? Why not Give Peace a Chance? Speak Out Now –
Remember Vietnam’. In October 1990, a six-block long march in New York
City was led by chants of ‘Hell, no, we won’t go – we won’t fight for
Texaco’.67 Anti-war rallies were also held at the White House and on Capitol
Hill in January 1991 as the Congress debated whether to grant Bush its
approval for the use of force against Iraq. The protesters seemed unim-
pressed with Bush’s moral arguments for intervention in the Gulf – their
stark rallying cry was ‘No Blood For Oil’.
Despite the protests, on January 12, following three days of debate, the
House voted 250–183 and the Senate 52–47 in favour of resolutions autho-
rizing the president to use force to implement the UN resolutions if Iraq did
not fully comply by January 15. Bush admits in his memoirs that ‘In truth,
even had Congress not passed the resolutions I would have acted and
ordered our troops into combat.’ In December, Bush had confided in his
diary and in a personal letter to his children that he was determined to
employ force against Iraq even if it meant facing impeachment.68
Bush’s memoirs also indicate that despite his claims to have followed the
finest American traditions by continually seeking a peaceful resolution to
146 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

the crisis, the president had decided very early on that force would be a
necessity rather than a last resort. He admits that by the end of August he
‘could not see how we were going to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait
without using force’ although he remained ‘reluctant to speak publicly’ of
doing so.69 Powell relates how on August 12, a mere six days after the UN
imposed economic sanctions on Iraq, the president had stated in private,
‘I don’t know if sanctions are going to work in an acceptable time frame.’
Powell had, in fact, become convinced as early as August 5 that Bush was
determined to use force when he saw the President emphasize to reporters:
‘This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.’ 70 The administration
perceived the crisis as a test of American resolve now that the Cold War had
ended. As Bush wrote in his diary on November 28: ‘we will prevail. … Our
role as a world leader will once again be reaffirmed, but if we compromise
and we fail, we would be reduced to total impotence, and that is not going
to happen.’ 71 Bush was also determined that the administration’s response
to the Gulf crisis would finally enable Americans to put the experience of
Vietnam behind them.
On March 1, 1991, after achieving victory against Iraq, Bush declared, ‘by
God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.’ 72 Yet, in his
address to the nation announcing the end of the Gulf War, Bush himself had
told Americans they could feel ‘pride in our nation and the people whose
strength and resolve made victory quick, decisive, and just’.73 The planning
and conduct of the Gulf War, far from ‘kicking’ the Vietnam syndrome, had
been carefully designed to comply with all of its central tenets: only use
force in pursuit of a just cause with compelling objectives that can be
achieved swiftly and with minimal casualties.
The lengths to which Bush went to demonstrate just cause for American
intervention against Iraq have already been shown. The administration also
maintained clearly stated political objectives throughout the crisis. As Bush
stated on August 8, 1990: ‘First, we seek the immediate, unconditional, and
complete withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Second, Kuwait’s legit-
imate government must be restored.’ 74 Militarily, the objectives went
through two phases. During Operation Desert Shield, between August 1990
and January 1991, the US and Allied forces were ordered ‘to defend against
an Iraqi attack on Saudi Arabia and be prepared to conduct other operations
as directed’.75 Once hostilities began, on January 16, 1991, the objective of
Operation Desert Storm was to implement the UN resolutions by using force
to drive Iraq out of Kuwait. Bush made it clear that: ‘Our goal is not the con-
quest of Iraq. It is the liberation of Kuwait.’ 76 As Powell concludes: ‘We were
fighting a limited war under a limited mandate for a limited purpose.’ 77
The decision to use force was made with careful consideration of the
lessons Bush and his advisers had learned from the Vietnam conflict. The
president was often very explicit about his concerns, both privately and
in public. During a November 30, 1990 meeting with the congressional
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 147

leadership, Bush asserted that: ‘We don’t need another Vietnam War. World
unity is there. No hands are going to be tied behind backs. This is not a
Vietnam. … It will not be a long, drawn-out mess.’ 78 According to journalist
Bob Woodward, Cheney ‘had come to realize what an impact the Vietnam
War had had on Bush. The president had internalized the lessons – send
enough force to do the job and don’t tie the hands of the commanders’.79
Powell confirms that: ‘We had learned a lesson from Panama. Go in big, and
end it quickly. We could not put the United States through another
Vietnam.’ 80 This intention was demonstrated by Bush in one of the most
explicit public expressions of the Vietnam syndrome ever to be given by a
US policy maker:

Prior to ordering our forces into battle, I instructed our military com-
manders to take every necessary step to prevail as quickly as possible, and
with the greatest degree of protection possible for American and allied
service men and women. I’ve told the American people before that this
will not be another Vietnam, and I repeat this here tonight. Our troops
will have the best possible support in the entire world and they will not
be asked to fight with one hand tied behind their back. I’m hopeful that
this fighting will not go on for long and that casualties will be held to an
absolute minimum. … And let me say to everyone listening or watching
tonight: When the troops we’ve sent in finish their work, I am deter-
mined to bring them home as soon as possible.81

The conduct of the war, therefore, embodied rather than defeated the
Vietnam syndrome. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of US
forces in the Gulf, was assured by Powell that ‘the President and Cheney will
give you anything you need to get the job done. And don’t worry, you won’t
be jumping off until you’re ready. We’re not going off half-cocked’.82 The
original troop deployment to Saudi Arabia was almost doubled to around
540,000, together with 254,000 coalition troops, so that the Pentagon was
confident enough force was available to achieve victory and do so swiftly.
The first phase of the campaign would be limited to air attacks, turning to
a ground offensive only in the final phase, in the hope of minimizing the
number of US and coalition casualties. As Bush declared when the air war
began: ‘Our operations are designed to best protect the lives of all coalition
forces by targeting Saddam’s vast military arsenal.’ 83
Efforts were also made to limit civilian casualties by carefully selecting tar-
gets and conducting most of the bombing at night when civilians would be
in their homes. Powell relates the extent to which efforts were made to
ensure only legitimate targets were attacked: ‘Lawyers got into the act. We
could not complete a list of air targets until the Pentagon general counsel’s
office approved.’84 Much was also made of the precision targeting of so-
called ‘smart bombs’ and the pinpoint accuracy of cruise missiles. Television
148 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

pictures taken from F-15 and F-117 cockpits of targets being hit with
‘surgical’ accuracy brought comparisons with popular computer games and
drew attention away from the human costs of the nightly bombardments of
Iraqi towns and cities. In reality, American technology was not as infallible
as it appeared. Washington Post reporter Rick Atkinson claims that of the 167
laser-guided bombs dropped by F-117s in the first five nights of the air war,
76 were entirely off-target. ‘Friendly fire’ also killed 35 coalition soldiers,
some of them when their transports were misidentified by US pilots. This
amounted to an unusually high 23 per cent of total allied casualties.
Civilians were also killed in relatively high numbers and the Soviet Union
in particular criticized the bombing of targets in population centres includ-
ing Baghdad. Most controversial of all was the destruction of Public Shelter
Number 25 in Baghdad that the US claimed was an ‘activated, recently cam-
ouflaged command-and-control center’. Whether this centre was contained
somewhere within the bunker remains a matter of dispute, but the bunker
did house an air raid shelter where 204 civilians were killed in their sleep,
many of them children.85
Aside from the incidences of ‘collateral damage’ and ‘friendly fire’, the
Persian Gulf War went beyond the best expectations of most US foreign pol-
icy makers. The air war lasted 38 days while the ground war took a mere four
days before a ceasefire was declared. Kuwait was liberated with relative ease,
the Iraqi army was routed, Saddam Hussein’s ability to develop weapons of
mass destruction was severely disrupted, and the perceived threats to
regional and economic security diminished. Despite estimates that up to
50,000 Americans would be killed, coalition casualties were extremely low
with 148 Americans and 92 coalition troops killed in action. Iraqi casualties
were much higher with early estimates of around 100,000 dead, although
the actual figure may be nearer 35,000.86
The disproportionate number of Iraqi dead was a source of some criticism
at the end of Operation Desert Storm. Journalists in particular focused on
the bombing and strafing of Iraqi combat units retreating from Kuwait along
civilian motorways which became known as the Highway of Death or the
Highway to Hell. Tony Clifton of Newsweek reported, ‘It really looked like a
medieval hell … because of the great red flames and then these weird little
contorted figures.’ Bob Dogrin of the Los Angeles Times wrote, ‘Scores of sol-
diers lie in and around [hundreds of] vehicles, mangled and bloated in the
drifting desert sands.’ A US army intelligence officer, Major Bob Nugent,
observed, ‘Even in Vietnam, I didn’t see anything like this.’87
Back in Washington, Powell worried that the television pictures of some
fifteen hundred burning and charred vehicles were giving the impression
that US forces were ‘engaged in slaughter for slaughter’s sake’. He recalls that
he advised the president: ‘We presently [hold] the moral high ground. We
could lose it by fighting past the … “rational” calculation [that] would indi-
cate the war should be ended.’88 Before authorizing the use of force,
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 149

Bush had himself aired concerns about ‘overkill’ and wanted to be sure ‘we
are not in there pounding people’ after American objectives had been
achieved.89 Baker and Scowcroft agreed that continuing the killing too long
could sour the effects of victory. Bush, therefore, gave the order to cease fire
after 100 hours of the ground war. He noted in his diary, ‘We crushed their
43 divisions, but we stopped – we didn’t just want to kill, and history will
look on that kindly.’90
Yet the destruction of the retreating Iraqi forces was designed to fulfil a
major American objective: diminishing Iraq’s ability to threaten its neigh-
bours. As Scowcroft recalls: ‘If Saddam withdrew with most of his forces
intact, we hadn’t really won.’ While the ground war was under way, Saddam
Hussein proposed a ceasefire and an unopposed withdrawal which the US
rejected. As Bush explains:

I was not about to let Saddam slip out of Kuwait without any account-
ability for what he had done, nor did I want to see an Iraqi ‘victory’ by
default or even a draw. Either he gave in completely and publicly, which
would be tantamount to surrender, or we would still have an opportunity
to reduce any future threat by grinding his army down further.91

Nevertheless, some elements of the Iraqi forces slipped through the trap
being closed by the coalition forces, although Powell concludes that the
‘back of the Iraqi army had been broken’.92 Lawrence Freedman and Efraim
Karsh have also concluded, ‘Despite the horrific images, most of the vehi-
cles on the “highway of death” were empty, and though there were other
such highways the total casualties in these attacks were probably measured
in hundreds rather than thousands.’93 Nonetheless, the bombing of retreat-
ing soldiers combined with relatively high civilian casualties raised serious
questions about the morality of some of the US military assaults and cast
something of a shadow over the administration’s claims to be acting in the
principled traditions of the exceptional nation.
Although the American public consistently approved of US objectives in
the Gulf, it had been uneasy about employing military force throughout the
crisis. In December 1990, a USA Today poll found only 42 per cent of
Americans were in favour of employing force against Iraq if Baghdad failed
to meet the January 15 deadline, although 80 per cent did believe the US
would eventually go to war. On the day of the deadline, Gallup found
45 per cent of Americans believing the US should fight in the Gulf and
44 per cent disagreeing. Once the air war was under way, however, 75 per
cent of Americans polled consistently declared support for the decision to
go to war and a steady 85 per cent approved of the way Bush was handling
the situation. Concerns then switched to the introduction of ground forces
and the resulting prospect of greater casualties. A Newsweek poll taken on
February 15 found 87 per cent of those surveyed supporting a continued air
150 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

war while only 8 per cent believed a ground offensive should be launched
‘soon’.94 American nervousness appeared to stem from the fear that the cam-
paign in the Gulf would be costly and protracted like the Vietnam War.
Following the rapid victory in the ground war, however, a sense of eupho-
ria swept the US. Victory parades were held in towns and cities across the
country to welcome home US troops in scenes reminiscent of the end of the
Second World War. Bush’s approval rating soared to 89 per cent, the highest
Gallup had ever recorded for a president.95 In a Gallup-CNN poll, 74 per cent
of Americans believed the Persian Gulf War had been a ‘just war’. Of all US
wars, only the Second World War was thought by significantly more Americans
(89 per cent) to have been fought for a just cause, while the Gulf War was
placed on a par with the Revolutionary War and the First World War.96 After
victory was declared, Bush proclaimed, ‘the specter of Vietnam has been buried
forever in the desert sands of the Arabian peninsula.’97 Yet, the Gulf War was
a major success for the US and extremely popular precisely because it was
fought in accordance with the Vietnam syndrome. As Powell concludes: ‘We
had given America a clear win at low casualties in a noble cause.’98
If further evidence were needed of the persistence of the Vietnam syn-
drome beyond the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait, it was provided by the
administration’s decision to halt the war short of driving Saddam Hussein
out of power and the refusal to renew hostilities in support of the Kurdish
and Shiite uprisings in Iraq that were suppressed in the aftermath of the war.
On February 15, during the air war, Bush had called upon ‘the Iraqi military
and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands – to force Saddam
Hussein, the dictator, to step aside, and to comply with the United Nations
resolutions and then rejoin the family of peace-loving nations’.99 Scowcroft
believes it is ‘stretching the point to imagine that a routine speech in
Washington would have gotten to the Iraqi malcontents and have been
the motivation for the subsequent actions of the [Shias] and Kurds’.100
Nevertheless, the media and public perception was that Bush had encour-
aged the uprisings in Iraq and that the US now had a moral obligation to
help Saddam Hussein’s opponents.
The moral crusade that Bush had portrayed the Gulf War as being now
succumbed to strategic imperatives and the limits placed on American
action by the Vietnam syndrome. The administration publicly justified leav-
ing Saddam Hussein in power and following a policy of nonintervention to
help the Kurds and Shias by appealing to the very same principle of state
sovereignty it had declared as a justification for aiding Kuwait. The admin-
istration could find no mandate in the UN resolutions which had authorized
military action to expel Iraq from Kuwait for further intervention in what
was becoming an Iraqi civil war. More importantly, though, Bush and his
advisers did not want such a mandate.
The administration had hoped that the Gulf War would result in the Iraqi
army deposing Saddam Hussein but, as Bush and Scowcroft note in their
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 151

memoirs, ‘for very practical reasons there was never a promise to aid an
uprising’. Although they hoped for a less threatening Iraqi leadership, for
strategic reasons the US did not want to see Iraq dismantled as a state. Powell
gives a clear summary of the administration’s policy:

However much we despised Saddam and what he had done, the United
States had little desire to shatter his country. For the previous ten years,
Iran, not Iraq, had been our Persian Gulf nemesis. We wanted Iraq to con-
tinue as a threat and a counterweight to Iran. … In none of the meetings
I attended was dismembering Iraq, conquering Baghdad, or changing the
Iraqi form of government ever seriously considered.101

The strategic objective of maintaining stability and the balance of power in

the Middle East outweighed any moral concerns for the self-determination
of the Kurds or the Shias. The administration was also convinced that the
international coalition assembled by Bush would not tolerate taking the war
into Iraq. As Bush confirms: ‘I firmly believed that we should not march into
Baghdad. … To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning
the whole Arab world against us, and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day
Arab hero.’102
The persistence of the Vietnam syndrome also had its influence on the
decision to stop the war short of driving Saddam Hussein from power. Bush
and his advisers did not relish the prospect of becoming entangled in a long
and bloody civil war that would cause increasing American casualties. As an
anonymous administration official admitted:

We decided early on if there was anything that could turn this into a
Vietnam conflict it was going into densely populated areas and getting
twelve soldiers a day killed by snipers. The main reason was that if we
went in to overthrow [Saddam Hussein], how would we get out? If we set
up a puppet government, how would we disentangle? That was the main
question.103

To have taken the Gulf War any further would have necessitated the US and
its allies conquering and occupying Iraq. Before the war began, Scowcroft
had noted that the ‘indefinite occupation of a hostile state and some dubi-
ous “nation-building” ’ was not a desirable option.104 Any such action would
almost certainly have involved larger numbers of American casualties either
in the face of a sustained defence of Baghdad or the development of a guer-
rilla war during occupation. Another, anonymous, senior administration
official confirmed in the New York Times: ‘Frankly, there is complete agree-
ment in this government that the American people have no stomach for a
military operation to dictate the outcome of a political struggle in Iraq.’105
152 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

The fear of another Vietnam thus greatly influenced the decision not to
continue the war beyond the stated objective of the liberation of Kuwait.
Public opinion seems to confirm that adherence to the Vietnam syndrome
was not weakened by the experience in the Gulf War. A CBS News-New York
Times poll conducted in March 1991 found that only 17 per cent of the
American public believed the US should ‘try to change a dictatorship to a
democracy where it can’, while 60 per cent believed it should ‘stay out of
other countries’ affairs’. More than 3 to 1 of Americans polled by Time-CNN
responded that the US should not ‘fight violations of international law and
aggression wherever they occur’. Most telling of all, though, was a Newsweek
survey conducted two days after the allied victory. To the question ‘Does
success in the Persian Gulf war make you feel the US should be more will-
ing to use military force in the future to help solve international problems?’
only 32 per cent said yes, while 60 per cent answered no.106

The use of force in the post-Gulf War era: Yugoslavia and

Somalia

Still further evidence that the Gulf War had failed to kick the Vietnam
syndrome was offered by the Bush administration’s reaction to the two major
foreign policy crises the US faced in 1992: the disintegration of Yugoslavia and
the humanitarian disaster in Somalia. In Yugoslavia, Bush initially sought to
preserve the territorial unity and integrity of the former communist state and
only belatedly recognized the independence of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-
Herzegovina. As war broke out between the former Yugoslav republics and
news of atrocities and the refugee problem filled television screens, support
grew in the US for some form of American intervention.107
Bush authorized humanitarian assistance for the refugees and economic
sanctions against Serbia but would not contemplate intervening with force.
In June 1992, Bush told reporters: ‘I think prudence and caution prevents
military actions.’108 In August, Bush made it fairly obvious that the prospect
of another Vietnam influenced his decision not to apply force to resolve the
conflict in the Balkans: ‘I do not want to see the United States bogged down
in any way into some guerrilla warfare. We lived through that once.’109
When he was asked what similarities Bush saw between the situation in
Bosnia and the situation in Vietnam he replied, ‘I don’t see any yet. And I’m
determined there won’t be any.’110 In a televised debate on October 11, with
his bid for re-election a mere month away, Bush made explicit his reasons
for not intervening militarily in Bosnia: ‘I vowed something, because
I learned something from Vietnam: I am not going to commit US forces until
I know what the mission is, until the military tell me that it can be completed,
until I know how they can come out.’111 Unless he could meet those crite-
ria, which were clearly part of the Vietnam syndrome, Bush was determined
not to commit US forces to the Balkans.
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 153

The Vietnam syndrome also played a role in the administration’s policy

towards the war-torn East African state of Somalia. On December 4, 1992,
despite having lost the presidential election to the Democratic candidate Bill
Clinton, President Bush announced the deployment of US forces to lead a
UN humanitarian mission to Somalia. Civil war had raged in the country
since 1988. By 1992, government rule and civil society had collapsed, vari-
ous factions fought for dominance throughout the country, and famine
ravaged the civilian population.112 Despite UN attempts to provide human-
itarian aid, over 250,000 Somalis had starved to death by December 1992,
with another one-and-a-half million deaths predicted over the next five
months. Between August and December, the US had helped airlift 20,000
tons of food and medicine to Somalia but due to the fighting and the state
of anarchy little of the aid was getting through to the starving population.
Faced with a humanitarian disaster, the US agreed to lead Operation Restore
Hope to alleviate the famine.
With no obvious strategic or economic interests at stake, Bush appealed
to the belief in American exceptionalism in his justification for using force
to aid the Somali people. He declared that the US had a moral duty to inter-
vene: ‘The people of Somalia, especially the children of Somalia, need our
help. We’re able to ease their suffering. We must help them live. We must
give them hope. America must act.’ He argued that the US was in a unique
position of strength in the world that gave it the responsibility to act when
a humanitarian disaster such as that in Somalia arose:

In taking this action, I want to emphasize that I understand the United

States alone cannot right the world’s wrongs. But we also know that some
crises in the world cannot be resolved without American involvement,
that American action is often necessary as a catalyst for broader involve-
ment of the community of nations. Only the United States has the global
reach to place a large security force on the ground in such a distant place
quickly and efficiently and thus save thousands of innocents from death.

The US would not be acting alone, Bush said, but without its leadership the
situation in Somalia could not be resolved. He also stressed that American
intervention was purely benevolent and in the finest tradition of the
American dedication to helping others. He assured the Somalis:

Let me be very clear: Our mission is humanitarian. … We do not plan to

dictate political outcomes. We respect your sovereignty and indepen-
dence. … We come to your country for one reason only, to enable the
starving to be fed.113

Bush’s justifications for intervention were warmly accepted by most

Americans. A Gallup poll, conducted on December 4 and 5 found that
154 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

74 per cent of those surveyed approved of the decision to send US armed

forces to Somalia.114
The question arose, however, why the US was willing to commit forces to
support humanitarian efforts in Somalia when it refused to do so in Bosnia.
The answer in December 1992 was that the mission to Somalia could satisfy
the requirements of the Vietnam syndrome whereas the Bosnian situation
could not. Bush found that the US objective was clear and attainable in
Somalia: ‘Our mission has a limited objective: To open the supply routes, to
get food moving, and to prepare the way for a U.N. peacekeeping force to keep
it moving.’ He could also assure the American people that US forces had ‘the
authority to use whatever military action is necessary to safeguard the lives of
our troops and the lives of Somalia’s people’. Bush also made it absolutely
clear that ‘once we have created [a] secure environment, we will withdraw our
troops, handing the security mission back to a regular UN peacekeeping
force. … This operation is not open-ended. We will not stay one day longer
than is absolutely necessary.’ 115 With the blessing of president-elect Clinton,
Bush authorized the deployment of US forces to Somalia because he believed
the operation would be a short, low-risk, and low-cost success.
It appears that the public agreed with their president. In the Gallup poll
that showed overwhelming support for the American intervention, 59 per
cent believed US involvement should be limited to ‘delivering relief sup-
plies’ rather than attempting to ‘bring an end to the fighting in Somalia’.
Almost two-thirds (64 per cent) expressed ‘at least some confidence that the
US will be able to accomplish its goals with very few or no American casu-
alties’. The poll also found that a ‘majority of Americans (52 percent) are
very or somewhat confident that US troops will be able to withdraw from
the country within a few months, as planned’. Another poll conducted by
Gallup for Newsweek revealed that only 15 per cent of Americans ‘expect the
operation to last a year or more’.116 Despite expectations of a short, suc-
cessful commitment to Somalia, however, as we shall see in the next chap-
ter, President Clinton was to find the conflict far more complex and costly
than had his predecessor.

Conclusions: George Bush and the New World Order

Despite his self-confessed problems with the ‘vision thing’, George Bush did
utilize the familiar rhetoric of American exceptionalism in many of his pub-
lic speeches and news conferences. He often did so to lesser effect than his
predecessor, due to his staccato style of public speaking. There were times,
however, when the president took to the bully pulpit with an enthusiasm
that enabled his message to strike a chord with the American public, none
more so than during his two major foreign policy crises in Panama and the
Persian Gulf. Bush confided in his diary in September 1990 that he preferred
working on international rather than domestic affairs. He admitted to being
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 155

able to become ‘fully engrossed’ in international crises such as that in the

Persian Gulf: ‘I enjoy working all the parts of it and I get into much more
detail than I do on the domestic scene.’117
Bush did eventually attempt to formulate overarching themes or visions
for both his domestic and foreign policy. On the domestic front it was the
rather nebulous notion of a ‘Thousand Points of Light’ which, particularly
during his campaign for re-election, became a catchphrase derided by crit-
ics as being almost wholly devoid of meaning or content. In international
affairs, however, Bush came to promote a vision that he called the ‘New
World Order’.
Although he did not use the phrase ‘new world order’ until the Gulf cri-
sis, Bush had first aired some of the ideas that would form his vision during
one of his earliest foreign policy speeches. On May 24, 1989, Bush claimed
Americans had ‘an opportunity before us to shape a new world’ which
would be based on ‘a growing community of democracies anchoring inter-
national peace and stability, and a dynamic free-market system generating
prosperity and progress on a global scale’.118 Later that year, at the UN, Bush
gave his vision a name that would fail to catch on. He spoke of a ‘new world
of freedom’ which would be formed around a ‘true community of nations
built on shared interests and ideals’ including the spread of democracy,
global economic growth through the free market, the pursuit of environ-
mental protection, and an end to the threats posed by weapons of mass
destruction, the illegal drugs trade and terrorism. Bush believed the collec-
tive pursuit of these goals would give ‘unity of purpose’ to the UN and ‘make
the new world of freedom the common destiny we seek’.119 A year later,
Bush’s vision of a new world of freedom would be transformed into what he
now called the new world order.
Bush and Scowcroft relate how the phrase new world order first arose in
a ‘long, philosophical chat’ they had about the state of the world while fish-
ing on August 23, 1990.120 Bush first publicly used the phrase rather casu-
ally at a news conference a week later. He remarked that the broad coalition
against Iraq made him think that ‘we do have a chance at a new world
order’.121 On September 11 that year, though, Bush gave greater form to his
vision in an address to the Congress:

We stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. The crisis in the

Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move
toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times …
a new world order can emerge: a new era – freer from the threat of terror,
stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace.
An era in which the nations of the world, East and West, North and
South, can prosper and live in harmony. A hundred generations have
searched for this elusive path to peace, while a thousand wars raged
across the span of human endeavor. Today that new world is struggling
156 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

to be born, a world quite different from the one we’ve known. A world
where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which
nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice.
A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.122

A year later at the UN, Bush laid out more specifically the goals of the new
world order. It would, he said, be ‘characterized by the rule of law rather
than the resort to force, the cooperative settlement of disputes rather than
anarchy and bloodshed, and an unstinting belief in human rights’.123
Yet if the new world order was Bush’s guiding vision for international
affairs, the record of his own administration indicated that in reality his
rhetoric meant very little. In the crisis with Iraq, the US had acted in con-
cert with an international coalition under the blessing of the UN. It is clear,
however, that almost from the outset the administration preferred the
‘resort to force’ over the ‘cooperative settlement’ of the dispute and that it
was willing to act alone if the coalition or the UN objected. Bush’s call for a
world where the ‘strong respect the rights of the weak’ also appears rather
hypocritical in light of the invasion of Panama which, after all, was roundly
condemned by the UN General Assembly. The ‘unstinting belief in human
rights’ was also set aside in favour of strategic and economic concerns in the
administration’s China policy, particularly after the Tiananmen Square
massacre in 1989.124
Although Bush suggested that the UN would be the forum for the devel-
opment and maintenance of the new world order, he actually regarded the
United States as the nation that would dictate the form, content and direc-
tion of that order. Bush assured the UN General Assembly that the US had
‘no intention of striving for a Pax Americana’. It would ‘offer friendship and
leadership’ while seeking ‘a Pax Universalis built upon shared responsibili-
ties and aspirations’.125 Yet in his 1991 State of the Union Address, Bush had
made clear that the new world order would be dominated and defined by
the United States. In a speech rich in exceptionalist rhetoric, he declared
that ‘American leadership is indispensable’. Bush reaffirmed that the US is
a special nation with a special destiny:

[We] know why the hopes of humanity turn to us. We are Americans; we
have a unique responsibility to do the hard work of freedom. And when
we do, freedom works. As Americans, we know that there are times when
we must step forward and accept our responsibility to lead the world
away from the dark chaos of dictators, toward the brighter promise of a
better day.

A new world order would be possible, Bush argued, because the US is the
only nation in the world that: ‘has both the moral standing and the means
to back it up. We’re the only nation on this Earth that could assemble the
 George Bush – The ‘Vision Thing’ and the New World Order 157

forces of peace. This is the burden of leadership and the strength that has
made America the beacon of freedom in a searching world.’126 Bush’s con-
ception of the new world order was clearly an expression of the missionary
strand of American exceptionalism.
The new world order was Bush’s answer to the uncertainties of the post-
Cold War world. It was a vision of how the world’s nations could strive
collectively to achieve and then maintain international stability.
Characteristically, it was a prudent, cautious vision that preferred the status
quo to any rapid or drastic international change. Most importantly, though,
Bush maintained that world order was only possible under US leadership,
guidance and protection. For all his talk of universalism, Bush’s new world
order was distinctly an American idea that assumed traditional American
values and principles had universal applicability – indeed, it saw the US as
a redeemer nation. Bush’s vision also ensured freedom of action for the
United States. The US would not be subservient to the collective will of the
UN but would define and follow its own priorities, preferably with but if
necessary without the support of the international community. As Bush and
Scowcroft admit, despite the success of the Gulf War, they remained unsure
of the UN Security Council’s ‘usefulness in a new role of actively resisting
aggression, and we opposed allowing the UN to organize and run a war. It
was important to reach out to the rest of the world, but even more impor-
tant to keep the strings of control tightly in our own hands’.127
Bush’s justifications for his foreign policy decisions, particularly those
involving the use of force, were also regularly couched in the language of
the missionary strand of American exceptionalism. Bush emphasized the
moral dimensions of the Panama and Persian Gulf crises even though ample
strategic, political and economic justifications for the administration’s poli-
cies also existed. Yet the moral dimension was rarely the major driving force
behind policy. Without the compelling strategic and economic concerns
surrounding the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait the administration would most
likely have been just as unwilling to intervene as it was in Bosnia where no
obvious American interests appeared to be at stake. The moral dimension
certainly failed to sway Bush’s policy towards China following the violent
suppression of the pro-democracy movement.
In terms of direct influence, the limits imposed by the requirements of the
Vietnam syndrome continued to have greater consequences for the actual
conduct of foreign policy than did the belief in American exceptionalism.
The administration’s determination not to become embroiled in another
Vietnam-style conflict largely dictated the course of policy in confronting
crises in Panama, the Persian Gulf, Bosnia and Somalia. Indeed, far from
‘kicking’ the Vietnam syndrome, as Bush claimed, the Gulf War demon-
strated how institutionalized the syndrome has become in US foreign policy
making. Yet although the belief in American exceptionalism did not dictate
policy, Bush nevertheless made much use of its rhetoric and couched most
158 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

of his foreign policy decisions in exceptionalist language. There are also

clear indications from his public pronouncements, published diary entries
and his memoirs that, just like his predecessor, George Bush believes that
the US is a special nation with a special destiny. Indeed, Bush ends his mem-
oirs with a clear affirmation of his belief in American exceptionalism:

As I look to the future, I feel strongly about the role the United States
should play in the new world before us. We have the political and eco-
nomic influence and strength to pursue our own goals, but as the lead-
ing democracy and beacon of liberty, and given our blessings of freedom,
of resources, and of geography, we have a disproportionate responsibility
to use that power in pursuit of a common good. We also have an obliga-
tion to lead. Yet our leadership does not rest solely on the economic
strength and military muscle of a superpower: much of the world trusts
and asks for our involvement. The United States is mostly perceived as
benign, without territorial ambitions, uncomfortable with exercising our
considerable power.128

The strong public approval for Bush’s justifications for his policies towards
Panama, Iraq and Somalia indicate that the American people responded well
when his appeals were couched in their shared belief in American excep-
tionalism. Bush’s ability to rally the nation around his major foreign policy
actions, however, failed to be translated into support for his domestic poli-
cies. His apparent lack of understanding and concern for the country’s social
and economic problems contributed greatly to his inability to secure a
second term in the White House. Lingering doubts remained among the
American public about the relative power of their nation, especially in terms
of economics. Yet Bush’s success in utilizing arguments couched in the lan-
guage of exceptionalism to justify some of his most important foreign pol-
icy decisions demonstrates that the belief in American exceptionalism
continues to have resonance with the American public. For all his pragma-
tism, the belief in American exceptionalism still provided the framework for
foreign policy discourse in George Bush’s administration.
7
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 domes-
tic 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 practi-
tioners 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

The Clinton foreign policy

Particularly during his first term, Bill Clinton was widely criticized for lack-
ing coherence, decisiveness and vision in his foreign policy.2 He was accused
of lurching from crisis to crisis without sufficient forethought and then
improvising his way through them. His ability to see the merit in all sides
of an argument and make their advocates feel he agreed with them gave the
impression to his critics that he lacked leadership skills and convictions. He
was thought to vacillate from view to view in an ad hoc manner that was
detrimental to American interests. Critics argued in particular that Clinton
had failed to ‘formulate a strategic vision for the post-Cold War era’.3
Much of the criticism seemed rooted in the idea that the US must have a
coherent foreign policy mission. The realities of the post-Cold War world

159
160 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

may be such, however, that an overarching vision or doctrine is simply not

attainable or perhaps even desirable. George Bush, as we have seen, had also
struggled with the ‘vision thing’. His successor had to deal with an interna-
tional situation where even more of the apparent certainties of the Cold War
era had disappeared. The US faced ‘no predictable adversary, no familiar
structure of conflict, and few external constraints’ to its foreign policy.4
As a result, Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University observed: ‘I honestly
don’t believe we’ll see the equivalent of George Kennan’s “X” article outlin-
ing a strategy as cohesive as containment.’ 5
The Clinton administration did, nevertheless, develop an overarching
foreign policy theme during its first few months in office. Clinton and his
foreign policy advisers made clear that the end of the Cold War and the
renewed focus on the domestic agenda would not cause the US to step back
from its international commitments. The president assured the UN that his
administration ‘intends to remain engaged and to lead. We cannot solve
every problem, but we must and will serve as a fulcrum for change and a
pivot point for peace’. At the forefront of this ‘engagement’ would be the pol-
icy of ‘enlargement’. The ‘overriding purpose’ of US foreign policy, Clinton
argued, ‘must be to expand and strengthen the world’s community of
market-based democracies’ and, now that the Cold War had ended, to
‘enlarge the circle of nations that live under … free institutions’.6
The enlargement policy was formally launched in September 1993 by
Clinton’s National Security Advisor Anthony Lake. He argued that the US
must ‘engage actively in the world in order to increase our prosperity, update
our security arrangements, and promote democracy abroad’. He contended
that the new policy of enlargement would be the ‘successor’ to the doctrine
of containment. There were four main components of enlargement. First,
that the US would ‘strengthen the community of major market democracies –
including our own’. Second, the US ‘should help foster and consolidate new
democracies and market economies, where possible’. Third, the administra-
tion ‘must counter the aggression – and support the liberalization – of states
hostile to democracy and markets’. These were what Lake and others within
the administration called ‘backlash’ or ‘rogue’ states such as Iraq and North
Korea. Fourth, Lake argued, the US needed to ‘pursue our humanitarian
agenda not only by providing aid but also by working to help democracy and
market economics take root in regions of greatest humanitarian concern’.7
John Dumbrell has argued that enlargement looked very much like ‘reborn
Wilsonianism: a restating of old notions about progress, American power, free
markets, and liberal democracy all advancing together without contradic-
tion’.8 James McCormick agrees that the Clinton approach to foreign policy
was ‘steeped in idealism’. 9 The policies of engagement and enlargement are
certainly examples of how exceptionalist assumptions underpinned much of
the Clinton administration’s foreign policy thinking. Both policies were
supported by exceptionalist rhetoric and were themselves expressions of the
 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ 161

missionary strand of American exceptionalism. The rationale of enlargement

was based upon the assumption that American values, principles and ways of
conducting politics and business had universal appeal. The administration
argued that enlargement would have security, economic, political and social
benefits not only for the US but also for the rest of the world. Clinton suggested
that the spread of democracy and free markets was to the benefit of all because:

Democracy is rooted in compromise, not conquest. It rewards tolerance,

not hatred. Democracies rarely wage war on one another. They make
more reliable partners in trade, in diplomacy, and in the stewardship of
our global environment. And democracies, with the rule of law and
respect for political, religious, and cultural minorities, are more respon-
sive to their own people and to the protection of human rights.10

As US Ambassador to the UN, and later Secretary of State, Madeleine

Albright put it, the US would ‘remain engaged in the world … to protect
America and build a better world’.11
With the policies of engagement and enlargement, therefore, Clinton and
his advisers advocated a clear theme of American leadership in world affairs
from early in his first term. Indeed, in a speech given by Secretary of State
Warren Christopher in May 1993, reporters noted that he had used the
terms ‘lead’ and ‘leadership’ 23 times.12 Lake also argued that the US
position as the ‘dominant power’ in the post-Cold War era meant it had
a responsibility to exercise global leadership:

The fact is, we have the world’s strongest military, its largest economy,
and its most dynamic multi-ethnic society. We are setting a global exam-
ple in our efforts to reinvent our democratic and market institutions. Our
leadership is sought and respected in every corner of the world. … Around
the world, America’s power, authority, and example provide unparalleled
opportunities to lead.

As Lake emphasized: ‘our interests and our ideals compel us not only to be
engaged but to lead.’13
Despite this recognition of American dominance and leadership, Clinton
insisted that the policy of enlargement would not be ‘some crusade to force
our way of life and doing things on others’.14 Albright argued that American
‘leadership’ rested on a ‘solid foundation of principles and values’ or what
she called ‘enlightened self-interest’.15 Lake was also adamant that enlarge-
ment did not mean the US would ‘seek to expand the reach of our institu-
tions by force, subversion, or repression’. American efforts at ‘fostering
democracy and markets’ would, he claimed, be entirely benign.16
Nonetheless, the leadership theme indicated that the administration,
drawing on the long tradition of exceptionalist belief, perceived the US as
162 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

holding an elevated position within world affairs. Clinton claimed that the
US ‘occupies a unique position in world affairs today’.17 In fact, he fre-
quently suggested that it was the world’s ‘only indispensable nation’. George
Bush had also claimed in his 1991 State of the Union address that US lead-
ership in the world was ‘indispensable’, but Clinton made the phrase his
own at the suggestion of Albright. On August 5, 1996, he declared: ‘The fact
is America remains the indispensable nation. … America, and only America,
can make a difference between war and peace, between freedom and repres-
sion, between hope and fear’ in the world.18 In his Second Inaugural Address
in 1997, Clinton reaffirmed that ‘America stands alone as the world’s indis-
pensable nation’, a claim firmly within the tradition of the missionary
strand of American exceptionalism.19
US foreign policy under Clinton would have the dual purpose, then, of
enabling domestic renewal and maintaining the US role as a global power.
The administration line was that continued engagement internationally was
in the national interest but also that American leadership brought with it
responsibilities that the US must uphold in its traditionally benign manner.
The administration emphasized the necessity of maintaining US credibility
in world affairs and also the redemptive nature of such engagement. The
Clinton White House continued the age-old theme that US actions globally
would bring benefits to the whole world. As Siobhán McEvoy-Levy has
observed, the administration ‘evoked the ideas of American exceptionalism
and responsibility and linked the preservation of American power and pres-
tige with the maintenance of American credibility’.20
Initially, both domestic and international economic interests were at the
centre of this attempt to preserve American power. In early 1995, Warren
Christopher stated: ‘I make no apologies for putting economics at the top of
our foreign policy agenda.’21 The administration had scored major victories
with its economic foreign policy in 1993 and 1994 with congressional
approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the
Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Indeed, the economic facets of enlargement at times clashed with and usu-
ally outweighed the administration’s avowed dedication to democracy pro-
motion.22 On announcing the policy of enlargement, Lake had admitted
this would sometimes be the case: ‘Other American interests at times will
require us to befriend and even defend non-democratic states for mutually
beneficial reasons.’23 Despite his earlier criticisms of the Bush administra-
tion’s policy, for example, Clinton downgraded concerns over human rights
and democracy in order to support the return of China to Most Favored
Nation trading status. The administration admitted, however, that eco-
nomic interests alone could not ‘constitute a successful and popular foreign
policy doctrine’.24 Clinton also had to deal with the diplomatic and strate-
gic challenges in foreign affairs that are the focus of this chapter. As Martin
Walker observes, ‘George Bush had bequeathed his successor a series of
 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ 163

as Somalia, Iraq, and Bosnia.25 The Clinton administration, therefore, had

to face the same questions of when and how the ‘indispensable nation’
should intervene internationally that had haunted all post-Vietnam
presidencies.

Vietnam and the use of force

The Vietnam War actually became a major issue in the 1992 presidential
campaign. The Bush campaign charged Clinton with having dodged the
draft during the war by joining an ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps)
programme from which he later withdrew to take up a low draft lottery
number. He was also accused of having organized anti-war protests while he
was studying as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University.26 The political furore
was tempered somewhat by Clinton’s choice of Vietnam veteran Al Gore as
his running mate and also by Bush’s Vice President Dan Quayle whose own
record on the issue was suspect. In the presidential election debates, Clinton
nevertheless responded forcefully to Bush: ‘You were wrong to attack my
patriotism. I was opposed to the war, but I loved my country.’27 The extent
of his protests against the war do seem to have been overstated and, as
Martin Walker concludes, ‘Clinton’s rebellion was a tame one for those
times, neither radical nor violent, and located squarely within the political
mainstream.’28 Clinton was, though, the first president from the Vietnam
generation. His election campaign represented ‘in an acute and highly visi-
ble way the coming together of a new American establishment’, much of
which was drawn from ‘the respectable wing’ of the anti-Vietnam war move-
ment now grown ‘older and wiser’.29 How would a president who had
opposed the Vietnam War be influenced by its continuing legacy?
Clinton was in fact determined, in common with many of his predeces-
sors, to move on from the Vietnam War. During the election campaign he
declared: ‘If I win, it will finally close the book on Vietnam.’30 Once in office,
Clinton succeeded in moving reconciliation efforts with Vietnam along fur-
ther than any previous president. On February 3, 1994, he announced that
the US trade embargo on Vietnam would be ended.31 Clinton went still further
on July 11, 1995. Just over twenty years after the fall of Saigon, he
announced the full normalization of relations between the US and Vietnam.
He declared that this step would help the US ‘to move forward on an issue
that has separated Americans from one another for too long now’. In words
reminiscent of many of his post-Vietnam predecessors, Clinton told
Americans:

This moment offers us the opportunity to bind up our own wounds. They
have resisted time for too long. We can now move on to common
ground. Whatever divided us before, let us consign to the past. Let this
164 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

moment, in the words of the Scripture, be a time to heal and a time to

build.32

In November 2000, in a further act of reconciliation, Clinton became the

first US president to visit the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. At a state din-
ner in Hanoi, he reminded those present that ‘the history we leave behind
is painful and hard. We must not forget it, but we must not be controlled by
it. The past is only what precedes the future, not what determines it’.33 Yet
despite all Clinton’s efforts to move beyond the Vietnam War, its legacy
remained a clear and important influence on one major aspect of his policy
making: the appropriate use of American military force.
In his First Inaugural Address, Clinton had asserted, ‘When our vital inter-
ests are challenged or the will and conscience of the international commu-
nity is defied, we will act, with peaceful diplomacy whenever possible, with
force when necessary.’34 Indeed, in the first few months of the administra-
tion, Clinton and his foreign policy team spoke frequently of ‘assertive mul-
tilateralism’, suggesting that the US would readily intervene in Somalia-style
operations in coalition with allies. It seemed the administration might be
attempting to move beyond the Powell Doctrine to redefine the appropriate
use of force.35 By September 1993, however, with questions being raised
about the ongoing commitment to Somalia, the administration moved away
from the policy of assertive multilateralism and back towards a more con-
strained view of when to use force.
On September 23, 1993, Madeleine Albright aired her views on whether
the US should employ force internationally: ‘Diplomacy will always be
America’s first choice, and the possibilities for diplomatic achievements
today are ample. But history teaches us that there will be times when words
are not enough, when diplomacy is not enough.’ To ensure its national secu-
rity, she argued, the US must possess ‘both the capacity to use force effec-
tively and the will to do so when necessary. When neither our ability to fight
nor our resolve to fight are in doubt, we can be most certain not only of
defeating those who threaten us but of deterring those who are tempted
to take such action’. Albright emphasized the administration’s resolve on
the matter: ‘let no one doubt that this President is willing to use force –
unilaterally if necessary.’36
Albright acknowledged that a debate had ‘raged’ through previous admin-
istrations over when and how to use force. She claimed that the Clinton
White House had ‘wisely avoided the temptation to devise a precise list of
the circumstances under which military force might be used’. Yet in the
same speech, Albright laid out a set of clear criteria, consistent with the
tenets of the Vietnam syndrome, by which the administration would decide
whether to support the use of force in UN operations. She suggested ‘certain
fundamental questions’ that should be answered before the UN committed
 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ 165

to ‘new obligations’ including:

Is there a real threat to international peace and security … ? Does the pro-
posed peace-keeping mission have clear objectives, and can its scope be
clearly defined? Are the financial and human resources that will be
needed to accomplish the mission available to be used for that purpose?
Can an end point to UN participation be identified?37

Albright’s speech revealed much of the substance of a long policy review that
would result in a further codification of the Vietnam syndrome in US decision
making over the use of force. The result of the review was Presidential Decision
Directive (PDD) 25, signed by Clinton and released publicly in May 1994. The
directive detailed the conditions, which were clear expressions of the Vietnam
syndrome, under which the US would be prepared to commit forces to ‘mul-
tilateral peace operations’ in the future. In keeping with Albright’s earlier
announcement, the US would vote for the deployment of UN peacekeeping
forces only if the ‘political, economic and humanitarian consequences of inac-
tion by the international community have been weighed and are considered
acceptable’; in other words, if just cause can be shown. The US would make
a significant contribution of troops only if there ‘exists a determination to
commit sufficient forces to achieve clearly defined objectives … decisively’ and
that an ‘endpoint for US participation can be identified’.38
The Vietnam syndrome was also clearly at the forefront of other members
of the administration’s views on the use of force. Anthony Lake, and Strobe
Talbott, ambassador at large and later deputy secretary of state, both ‘repre-
sented the Vietnam syndrome’ in the administration. According to William
Hyland:

They saw the Vietnam War as a catastrophe; they not only feared another
‘quagmire’ but, more positively, wanted policy to represent high-minded
ideals. Lake believed Vietnam had reduced the United States to ‘just
another nation,’ tremendously powerful but ‘almost as vulnerable to oth-
ers as they have been to us.’ To correct this deplorable state of affairs it
was necessary to adopt a righteous foreign policy.39

In testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in April,

1993, Warren Christopher laid out the four conditions under which he
believed US military force could be used. There must be: ‘1. Clearly articu-
lated objectives; 2. Probable Success; 3. Likelihood of popular and congres-
sional support; and 4. A clear exit strategy.’40 The Powell Doctrine itself
remained influential, since initially its author was retained as Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His successor, General John M. Shalikashvili, built
on Powell’s strategy, stating that the US military was ‘prepared to use
decisive and overwhelming force, unilaterally if necessary, to defend
166 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

America’s vital interests’. He could also countenance using US forces to

defend humanitarian interests but insisted that in all cases, ‘the commit-
ment of US forces must be based on the importance of the US interests
involved, the potential risks to American troops, and the appropriateness of
the military mission’.41
In Clinton’s second term, his new National Security Advisor, Samuel R.
‘Sandy’ Berger, moved the debate over the use of force forward by advocat-
ing what he called ‘Powell-Plus’. He criticized the Powell Doctrine for being
too limiting and not enabling the US to use military force short of all-out
war: ‘Where it needs to be updated is on the question of whether or not mil-
itary force can be used for more limited purposes than the decimation of the
enemy. It cannot mean that we have choices between nothing and every-
thing.’ Berger thus advocated the use of force in situations where the US was
‘strong enough to dominate an opponent’ to achieve its objectives rather
than needing to totally defeat them.42 Yet Berger’s ‘Powell-Plus’ was still a
variation on a theme, and indeed Powell’s own record demonstrated he was
willing to accept limited uses of sufficient force to achieve limited objectives.
The remainder of this chapter will consider how this debate within the
administration was played out, by analysing the extent to which the per-
ceived lessons of the Vietnam War continued to influence decision making.
It will also address how the belief in American exceptionalism continued to
influence US foreign policy, by focusing on the administration’s three main
interventions, in Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Somalia

Clinton had inherited the humanitarian mission to Somalia, begun during

the last weeks of the Bush administration. In March 1993, however, the mis-
sion gained a political objective as the Clinton administration supported a
UN Security Council resolution designed to help rebuild Somalia’s system of
civil government and disarm its various warring factions. The new dimen-
sion to the UN mission amounted to ‘nation-building’, a term Americans
had become familiar with in Vietnam. The US had initially deployed 28,000
troops to Somalia but this was now reduced to around five thousand as part
of the new multinational peace enforcement operation. Despite this force-
reduction, the Clinton administration’s experience in Somalia moved from
one that seemed to reflect the best of America’s exceptional nature to one
that again raised the spectre of the Vietnam War.
The major turning point came on October 3, 1993, when elite US Army
Rangers launched a raid in the capital, Mogadishu, to arrest members of
the Somali faction, led by Mohammed Farah Aideed, suspected of having
killed 24 Pakistani peacekeepers in June. A bloody street battle ensued as
18 Rangers died and 77 were wounded defending a downed US helicopter.
Some 300 Somalis were killed and over 700 wounded, 30 per cent of them
 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ 167

women and children. One of the dead American soldiers was dragged
through the streets by a crowd of jubilant Somalis in front of American tele-
vision cameras. The US Congress reacted with immediate outrage and called
for American troops to be withdrawn. Comparisons were made with the
bungled mission in Lebanon during the Reagan administration and,
inevitably, with Vietnam itself.43
Clinton responded by reinforcing the existing troop deployment in
Somalia but pledged that all US forces would be withdrawn and replaced
with other UN forces by March 31, 1994. He declared that what Somalia
needed was an ‘African solution for an African problem’.44 The initial
humanitarian objective of the Somalia mission had nevertheless been
achieved. The famine was ended with what Clinton claimed were a million
lives saved. The further objectives added under Clinton’s ‘mission creep’
were not accomplished, however. There was no successful ‘political recon-
struction, disarming of the factions, or a resolution of the conflict’ in
Somalia.45 Clinton admitted, ‘our ability to stop people within national
boundaries from killing each other is somewhat limited, and will be for the
foreseeable future.’46
There were clearly limits to what the indispensable nation could achieve.
Indeed, the transition in Somalia from the US-led operation to distribute
food to the UN-led nation-building operation demonstrated that the
Vietnam syndrome had become further institutionalized in US military
planning. As Karin von Hippel observes, the policy was ‘derived from the
lessons learned in the Vietnam War and the subsequent desire to avoid “mis-
sion creep”. Based on the “Powell doctrine”, the emphasis is on initial, over-
whelming force, with the baton passed to a multi-national operation within
a short time period’.47 The problem in Somalia, however, was that the tran-
sition did not go smoothly and mission creep did occur.
The nation-building effort was greatly hindered by the legacy of long-term
state collapse in Somalia. There was also friction between the US and UN
over the control of the operation.48 Significantly, though, the biggest
problem – admitted in a UN report on the lessons learned from Somalia –
was that the ‘operation’s mandate was vague, changed frequently during the
process and was open to myriad interpretations’.49 The first requirement of
the Vietnam syndrome, that objectives should be clear and attainable, was
broken by the Somalia intervention and precipitated the American with-
drawal, especially once it became obvious that those objectives would not
be achieved quickly and decisively with a minimum number of casualties.
Somalia was looking more and more like a Vietnam-style quagmire. In the
US Congress, opposition to the mission had been growing throughout the
summer.50 Following the deaths of the Army Rangers, Representative Sherrod
Brown of Ohio called for an American withdrawal, because ‘our mission
[has] become clouded in Somalia and our role [is] undefined’.51 Representative
Jim Ramstad of Minnesota was even more forthright: ‘the President had
168 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

better get his foreign policy act together before Somalia becomes another
Vietnam.’ The US was ‘getting bogged down in a prolonged and deadly oper-
ation’ that he described as ‘the height of foreign policy folly’.52
Von Hippel asks why the ‘fear of body bags’ could be overcome in the
1989 Panama invasion where 23 US soldiers died but not in Somalia when
18 were killed? The answer is that the Vietnam syndrome is not simply
about casualties. The American public has shown that it will maintain sup-
port for military interventions even if casualty figures rise, provided that the
other requirements of the Vietnam syndrome are being met. In Panama, the
objectives appeared clear and were achieved rapidly despite the loss of
American life. In Somalia, the fear was that further sacrifices would be a
waste of lives since it seemed highly unlikely that the stated objectives of
the operation would be achieved sufficiently in the foreseeable future. Thus
the Vietnam analogy rose to the forefront of debate and an apparent con-
sensus to ‘Get Out’ of Somalia was forged rapidly. As Linda Miller argues:
‘The televised pictures of a US raid gone wrong, with 18 men killed, hard-
ened public opinion against using American forces in the internecine
quarrels of a homogeneous people in a far-away place.’53 Some polls showed
support for the Somalia mission falling to a low of 33 per cent in the after-
math of the firefight. Members of Congress also claimed their offices had
been inundated with constituent calls demanding the withdrawal of
American troops.54
Other polling data and research suggest, however, that policy makers mis-
read the public mood. Although there were clear majorities in favour of a
withdrawal from Somalia, an ABC News poll found only 37 per cent of
respondents wanted the troops to pull out immediately, an opinion
matched by a minority of 43 per cent in a CNN/USA Today survey. The same
polls and another by NBC also found majorities of between 55 and 61 per
cent supportive of Clinton’s decision to increase the US troop commitment
to Somalia in the short term followed by a gradual withdrawal. Most
tellingly, ABC found 75 per cent of respondents favouring the use of a ‘major
military attack’ if negotiations failed to secure the release of American pris-
oners taken in the October 3 firefight. Contrary to the conventional wis-
dom, as Michael McKinnon has observed, ‘there was no overwhelming
outcry by the public to pull out of Somalia. Rather it appears as though
many members of Congress either overestimated the public’s reaction, or
simply presumed what it would be.’55 The example of Somalia suggests that
policy makers themselves are now more sensitive to the tenets of the
Vietnam syndrome than the public at large.
Regardless of any opinion gap between public and elite views, the debacle
in Somalia did reinforce the apparent lessons of Vietnam among policy
makers that there should be strict limits on how and when the US employs
its military might. The Bush administration had intervened in Somalia for
purely humanitarian reasons. Early in Clinton’s first term there had been
 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ 169

much advocacy of the idea that American leadership in the world brought
with it the responsibility to intervene in the affairs of others on humanitar-
ian grounds. Now, however, Clinton and his advisers had lost much of their
enthusiasm for ‘assertive multilateralism’. This fact was clearly demon-
strated by the American response to the genocidal mass killings of ethnic
minority Tutsis by majority Hutus in the African state of Rwanda. In the
spring of 1994, as PDD 25 was published and the Rwandan situation spun
out of control, the Clinton administration opposed any increase to the small
UN force in the country. This policy was followed despite the claims of the
UN commander in Rwanda that with a few thousand more troops he could
prevent tens of thousands of deaths. The administration even ordered its
officials to avoid using the term ‘genocide’ to describe the slaughter so it
would not have to face its obligations under the 1948 UN Genocide
Convention.56 Despite its rhetoric advocating American leadership, the ben-
efits of global engagement, and the promotion of peace through democra-
tic enlargement, on the African continent at least the administration’s
concerns for humanitarian causes seemed to be overwhelmed by the desire
to avoid a difficult, long-term military commitment. The moral imperative
was also not great enough, at least initially, to overcome fears of entering
a potential quagmire in the Balkans.

Bosnia

During his 1992 election campaign, Clinton had heavily criticized the Bush
administration’s inaction over the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He said the
US ‘cannot afford to ignore what appears to be a deliberate and systematic
extermination of human beings based on their ethnic origin’. Candidate
Clinton’s sympathies were clearly with the Bosnian Muslims. He advocated
using ‘air power against the Serbs to try to restore the basic conditions of
humanity’ and to lift the arms embargo against the Bosnian Muslims
because ‘they are in no way in a fair fight’.57 Once in office, these ideas
developed into the proposed policy of ‘lift and strike’. Despite the diplo-
matic efforts of Christopher and others, however, European governments
could not be convinced of the advantages of such a policy, not least because
they believed it would intensify the conflict and put the mostly French and
British UN troops on the ground at greater risk.58 Clinton himself backed
away from the idea after reading Robert D. Kaplan’s Balkan Ghosts, on the
origins of the region’s ethnic conflict, and a Wall Street Journal article by
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., which suggested that the Balkan conflict could scup-
per the president’s domestic policies just as Vietnam had ruined President
Johnson’s.59 During Clinton’s first year in office, administration policy
showed little significant change from that of his predecessor and the president
came to endorse the view that, despite humanitarian concerns, the Balkans
were a European problem for the Europeans to solve. The administration’s
170 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

inability to act decisively over Bosnia, its failure to sell its policy to the
Europeans, and Clinton’s apparent wavering over what course to pursue, all
contributed to a growing sense among critics that the president did not suf-
ficiently comprehend foreign affairs and that his foreign policy was a sham-
bles. Bosnia, like Somalia, was becoming ‘a symbol of Clinton’s failed
foreign policy’.60
After much hesitancy and wringing of hands, the Clinton administration
finally shifted to a policy of greater engagement in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995.
The major turning point was the February 6, 1994 mortar bombing of the cen-
tral market in Sarajevo which killed 68 people and wounded more than 200.
The moral imperative now appeared stronger to Clinton who admitted that
‘more must be done’ to stop the ‘strangulation of Sarajevo and the contin-
uing slaughter of innocents in Bosnia’. Clinton also now emphasized that
the US had ‘clear interests at stake’ in the conflict. Most compelling was the
prevention of a wider European conflict developing, something that had
always been in the foreground of American and European concerns. Clinton
also stated that NATO’s credibility as a ‘force for peace’ was at stake and that
the ‘destabilizing flows of refugees’ should be stemmed. He remained clear
that these interests did not warrant unilateral intervention but they did ‘jus-
tify the involvement of America and exercise of our leadership’.61 For the
first time, Clinton threatened the Bosnian Serbs with NATO air strikes unless
they withdrew their heavy weapons from around Sarajevo.
Martin Walker argues that the ‘crucial new factor in the White House was
Clinton’s political will, and his readiness to deploy US military power’.62 Yet
the ghosts of Vietnam and the more recent experience in Somalia remained
very much present. The threat of force against the Bosnian Serbs was still
confined within strict limits. Clinton made clear that NATO would not
‘commit itself to any objectives it cannot achieve’. He was adamant that the
use of air power would not lead to an escalating intervention: ‘I have not
sent American ground units into Bosnia. And I will not send American
ground forces to impose a settlement that the parties to that conflict do not
accept.’ US intervention would be limited to the use of aircraft in NATO
operations designed to force the Bosnian Serbs to accept a negotiated settle-
ment, but US ground forces would not be put in harm’s way in Bosnia.
Clinton admitted that the use of air power was not without risk and that the
US might suffer losses, but he assured the public that all precautions would
be taken to minimize the likelihood of American casualties.63
On this occasion, the threat worked and the air strikes were called off after
the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, agreed to withdraw heavy
weapons from around Sarajevo. In the following months, however, NATO
did use limited air strikes to punish various Serb actions. Far from deterring
the Serbs in Bosnia, however, these ‘slaps on the wrist’64 emboldened them
to seize UN peacekeepers as hostages and use them as human shields against
further air strikes from late 1994. On July 9, 1995, the full ineffectiveness of
 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ 171

UN forces on the ground and NATO air cover was revealed dramatically and
tragically. Despite the presence of Dutch UN peacekeepers, the ‘safe haven’
of Srebrenica was overrun by Serb forces who massacred several thousand
Bosnian Muslims. Two weeks later the same fate befell another safe area,
Zepa. The situation in Bosnia appeared to be worsening daily rousing a
debate over whether UN and NATO operations should be enhanced or
whether they should extricate themselves from the conflict.65 The decision
was taken to remain and, in Clinton’s words, to threaten a ‘sustained and
decisive use of air power’ to ‘raise the price of Serb aggression’.66 He
promised that future NATO responses would be ‘broad, swift, and severe,
going far beyond the narrow attacks of the past’.67
At every stage in this gradual escalation of the threat level against the
Serbs there appeared a consistent reluctance to engage further. The admin-
istration seemed determined to avoid ‘mission creep’, although effectively
this is exactly what was occurring. Throughout this period, however,
Clinton never wavered in his conviction that deploying US ground troops
to force an end to the conflict was not an answer to Bosnia’s problems, or
at least was not an acceptable policy option. On May 23, 1995, as the Serbs
resumed their shelling of Sarajevo, Clinton insisted that the US was ‘doing,
at the moment, all we can do. … I do not believe the United States has any
business sending ground troops there’.68 On June 3, with over 300 UN
troops held hostage, he reiterated: ‘we certainly should not have ground
forces there, not as a part of the military conflict nor as a part of the United
Nations peacekeeping mission.’ Clinton offered continued support to
America’s allies, should they decide to remain in Bosnia, but only within
‘very careful limits’: ‘I want to make clear again what I have said about our
ground forces. We will use them only if, first, there is a genuine peace with
no shooting and no fighting and the United States is part of policing that
peace.’ He did add, however, that he would countenance a strictly limited,
temporary use of ground troops to help with the withdrawal of UN forces
should this occur, or to help extricate any UN unit that should become
stranded or pinned down. On the whole, he argued, America’s allies in the
conflict ‘do not want us, they do not expect us to put American ground
troops into Bosnia. But we do have an interest in doing what we can short
of that to contain the conflict and minimize and eventually end the human
suffering’. Frustrating as this might be at times, Clinton concluded, this was
the ‘appropriate, acceptable, proper policy for the United States’. In the end,
he argued, ‘the conflict will only be resolved by diplomacy’.69
The endgame to the Bosnian conflict, however, was finally approaching.
In August 1995, the Croatians and their Bosnian Muslim allies launched a
major offensive against the Serbs, reclaiming territory that had been seized
within Croatia and making large gains within Serb-controlled areas of west-
ern Bosnia. In the same month, Clinton vetoed congressional legislation
that would have unilaterally lifted the arms embargo on the Bosnian
172 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Muslims.70 On August 28, the Serb forces around Sarajevo finally pushed
NATO’s patience too far by launching another mortar attack against a
crowded marketplace, killing 37 people and wounding 85. Two days later,
after a final ultimatum to the Serbs was ignored, NATO began a sustained,
US-led bombing campaign against Serb targets.
The combination of NATO bombing and the western offensive had a
marked effect on the Serbian willingness to negotiate. Talks led by US
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs Richard
Holbrooke intensified throughout the autumn, leading ultimately to the
Dayton Agreement which ended the war on November 21, 1995. The agree-
ment was not unlike the plan UN envoys Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen had
been negotiating three years earlier, which the Clinton administration had
initially rejected. Bosnia would survive as a single, multi-ethnic nation, but
the Federation of Bosnian Muslims and Croats would control 51 per cent of
its territory, while the Bosnian Serbs would hold the remaining 49 per cent
as Republika Srpska.71
The Dayton Agreement called for an international force of 60,000 troops
to enter Bosnia to implement the peace. NATO would command the forces
with the US providing some 20,000 troops. As the negotiations in Ohio were
about to get under way, Clinton again assured Americans that although US
participation in any implementation process was essential for its success he
would not be sending any ground troops into Bosnia ‘until the parties reach
a peace agreement’. Even then he would ensure they only participated if
they had ‘clear rules of engagement and a clearly defined mission’.72 Once
the agreement was signed, Clinton assured the nation that ‘America’s role
will not be about fighting a war; it will be about helping the people of Bosnia
to secure their own peace agreement’.73 He was ‘satisfied that the NATO
implementation plan is clear, limited, and achievable and that the risks to
our troops are minimized’.74
The use of American ground troops to implement the Dayton Agreement
would meet the conditions of the Vietnam syndrome. Clinton argued the
cause was just since: ‘Without us, the hard-won peace would be lost, the war
would resume, the slaughter of innocents would begin again – and the con-
flict that already has claimed so many people could spread like poison
throughout the entire region.’75 The credibility of the US and NATO was also
at stake, as ‘America’s commitment to leadership will be questioned if we
refuse to participate in implementing a peace agreement that we brokered.’
The objectives were also clear and attainable: ‘the mission will be precisely
defined with clear, realistic goals that can be achieved in a definite period of
time.’ The Implementation Force (IFOR) would oversee the disengagement
of forces and police the ceasefire to create a secure environment for the
rebuilding of a peaceful Bosnia. With memories of Somalia still fresh,
Clinton also stressed that ‘a separate program of humanitarian relief and
reconstruction’ would be undertaken by international ‘civilian agencies’.76
 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ 173

He was adamant that: ‘There will be no “mission creep”.’77 Clinton insisted

that sufficient force was being deployed to effectively and efficiently achieve
the mission’s objectives while minimizing the likelihood of American casu-
alties. US troops would be ‘heavily armed and thoroughly trained. By making
an overwhelming show of force, they will lessen the need to use force’. Unlike
UN forces deployed during the Bosnian war, IFOR troops would have ‘the
authority to respond immediately and the training and equipment to respond
with overwhelming force to any threat to their own safety or any violations
of the military provisions of the peace agreement’. He admitted that ‘no
deployment of American troops is risk-free, and this one may well involve
casualties’ but he promised to ‘take every measure possible to minimize these
risks’. He warned that: ‘Anyone – anyone – who takes on our troops will suffer
the consequences. We will fight fire with fire – and then some.’78
Holbrooke admits in his memoirs that the US had intervened ‘belatedly
and reluctantly’ in Bosnia, but he argues that without that intervention ‘the
war would have continued for years and ended disastrously’.79 Clinton and
others in his administration emphasized that it was American leadership
that had finally brought an end to the Bosnian War. They argued, however,
that it was not only American military power that explained that leadership
role, but also the exceptional nature of the US as a nation among nations.
Strobe Talbott argued that:
One of the greatest strengths of our country’s foreign policy is that when
it is at its best, it is rooted as solidly in American idealism as it is in
American pragmatism. The world continues to look to us for leadership
not just because of our economic and military might but also because,
despite our initial reluctance to undertake what George Washington
described as ‘foreign entanglements,’ we as a people have at crucial
moments been willing to do the right thing.80
Clinton took up the same theme in his Address to the Nation on the Dayton
Agreement on November 27, 1995: ‘From our birth, America has always
been more than just a place. America has embodied an idea that has become
the ideal for billions of people throughout the world. Our founders said it
best: America is about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ Throughout
the twentieth century, Clinton argued, the US had ‘done more than simply
stand for these ideals. We have acted on them and sacrificed for them’. In a
clear expression of the missionary strand of American exceptionalism,
Clinton declared that: ‘Today, because of our dedication, America’s ideals –
liberty, democracy, and peace – are more and more the aspirations of peo-
ple everywhere in the world. It is the power of our ideas – even more than
our size, our wealth and our military might – that makes America a uniquely
trusted nation.’81
Throughout most of Clinton’s first term he had been chastised for being
weak and vacillating in foreign policy. According to Holbrooke, ‘Dayton
174 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

changed this almost overnight’. The criticisms ‘ended abruptly’ and

‘Washington was now praised for its leadership’.82 Indeed, the administra-
tion could boast a long list of first-term foreign policy achievements, despite
all the criticisms. Walker observes that ‘nothing on the planet seemed to
get done without the ubiquitous Americans’.83 Apart from the debacle in
Somalia, the US had helped to broker peace in Bosnia; restored the democ-
ratic leadership of Haiti; contributed to peace negotiations in Northern
Ireland; taken credit for an Israeli–Palestinian peace accord, largely due to
the symbolic handshake on the White House lawn between Yitzhak Rabin
and Yasir Arafat; continued to contain and occasionally punish Saddam
Hussein in Iraq; prevented nuclear proliferation in North Korea; normalized
relations with Vietnam; helped negotiate the removal of Russian troops
from the Baltic states and nuclear weapons from Ukraine and Kazakhstan;
and assisted in the stabilization of Boris Yeltsin’s government in Russia. Not
surprisingly, the administration felt emboldened by these successes. As
Holbrooke further observes: ‘After Dayton, American foreign policy seemed
more assertive, more muscular. This may have been as much perception as
reality, but the perception mattered.’ The leadership theme that had been
present from the beginning of the administration now became the main ral-
lying cry of the Clinton foreign policy. The ideas that would lead to Albright,
Clinton and others referring to the US as the world’s only indispensable
nation became prominent in public statements on foreign policy. Clinton
claimed: ‘there is no substitute for American leadership.’84 Talbott agreed
that:

If we do not provide international leadership, then there is no other

country on earth that can or will step in and lead in our place as a con-
structive, positive influence. America is not just another country; we are
a global power with global interests. If we do not lead the way in pro-
moting freedom, peace, and prosperity on a global scale, no one else will.

Talbott also argued that this leadership role was not only in US interests but
also a reflection of the nation’s deepest values and traditions: ‘We believe
that we face historic opportunities not just to combat threats and enemies
from abroad but also to build a world that promotes our interests and
reflects our ideals.’85
There was a strong belief within the administration following the experi-
ence in Bosnia that American diplomacy paired with the threat or actual use
of US military power was a potent combination that placed the US in a posi-
tion of strength in the post-Cold War world. However, it is clear that the
Clinton administration remained significantly constrained by the legacy of
the Vietnam War, as had all previous post-Vietnam administrations. The US
would still only intervene in conflicts or crises under very specific condi-
tions that limited the time, place and nature of America’s indispensability.
 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ 175

Rwanda, for example, had certainly not been considered the right place or
the right time.
Despite the final peace in Bosnia being won largely as a result of the
American willingness to use force, criticisms of indecisiveness and weakness
on the part of the administration did remain beyond Dayton. In his mem-
oirs of the Bosnian negotiating process, for example, Lord Owen claimed
that had the Clinton administration acted earlier, peace could have been
forged in Bosnia in the spring of 1993, thus saving thousands of lives.
Hyland argues that in 1993, Clinton was unwilling to jeopardize his domes-
tic agenda by engaging in a ‘messy foreign entanglement’, whereas by 1995,
with a presidential election year looming, he realized that his inaction
might cost him the presidency.86 After Dayton, Clinton admitted there were
still limits to what the US could achieve globally. He reminded Americans
that they ‘cannot and must not be the world’s policeman’. But he also
insisted that the US should act when it could:

There are times and places where our leadership can mean the difference
between peace and war and where we can defend our fundamental val-
ues as a people and serve our most basic, strategic interests. My fellow
Americans, in this new era there are still times when America and
America alone can and should make the difference for peace.87

In his second term, with political scandal threatening to overshadow eco-

nomic success at home, Clinton turned more and more attention to foreign
affairs. He made wholesale changes to his foreign policy team with the
appointments of Madeleine Albright as Secretary of State, William Cohen as
Secretary of Defense, and Sandy Berger as National Security Advisor. He trav-
elled abroad more than any previous president, particularly in his efforts to
be regarded as an international peacemaker in such places as Northern
Ireland and the Middle East. He also had what his aides referred to as his
‘finest hour’ as he dealt with another crisis in the Balkans.88

Kosovo

Kosovo had become an autonomous province of Serbia in 1974. This status

was revoked, however, by Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbian government in 1989
following protests that the Albanian majority was discriminating against the
Serb minority. In the mid-1990s, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) began
a sporadic terrorist campaign against Serb targets that developed into a
major offensive in February 1998. The KLA took control of more than 30 per
cent of the province before being driven back by a Serb intervention. As win-
ter approached, the Serbs made greater gains, there were reports of ‘ethnic
cleansing’ and Kosovo Albanian refugees took to the hills. The threat of
NATO air strikes convinced Milosevic to accept a ceasefire and withdraw
176 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Serb forces. As the Serbs pulled out, the KLA moved back in, and Serb
reprisals followed. A negotiated settlement was attempted at Rambouillet,
near Paris. The KLA signed but the Serbs refused and negotiations ended on
March 19, 1999. Three days later Serbia launched an offensive in Kosovo and
on March 24 NATO began a three-month bombing campaign against Serbia
and Serbian targets in Kosovo.89
Clinton told the nation that by acting with its allies against Serbia, the US
was ‘upholding our values, protecting our interests, and advancing the cause
of peace’. He claimed: ‘we have done everything we possibly could to solve
this problem peacefully’ but had been shunned by the Serbian govern-
ment.90 The main justification for intervention, Clinton argued, was the
‘compelling humanitarian reason’ of preventing thousands of people being
removed from their homes or from being killed. In a television interview, he
claimed: ‘we are acting in defense of the defenseless. We are not carrying out
an aggressive war. We are acting at a time when [Serb forces are] going
through the country killing people.’ According to Clinton, the ‘main thing’
was to resolve a ‘horrible humanitarian crisis’.91 He also contended that
NATO must act to prevent a wider war and hinted that inaction would dis-
credit the alliance. This last reason was probably more important than the
‘moral imperative’. As one of Clinton’s advisers told the Washington Post,
‘there are bloodbaths all over the world and we’re not intervening in them.
This one’s in the heart of Europe. I’d argue that the [NATO] alliance itself is
at risk because if it’s unable to address a major threat within Europe, it really
loses its reason for being.’92 NATO was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in
April 1999 and, as Michael MccGwire observes, the Kosovo intervention was
an excellent opportunity at the time of this occasion to demonstrate ‘the
continuing relevance of the alliance’, its right to act ‘out-of-area’ and
‘without specific UN endorsement’.93 Nonetheless, the administration
stressed reasons for intervention that were consistent with the tradition of
exceptionalism.
It is also clear that the administration advocated intervention because
they believed it could meet the conditions of the Vietnam syndrome. The
humanitarian imperative, as we have seen, made the intervention a just
cause. Clinton also declared that the overall goal in Kosovo was clear and
compelling: ‘to stop the killing and achieve a durable peace that restores
Kosovars to self-government.’94 NATO air strikes, therefore, had three
specific objectives, according to the president:

Our mission is clear: to demonstrate the seriousness of NATO’s purpose

so that the Serbian leaders understand the imperative of reversing course;
to deter an even bloodier offensive against innocent civilians in Kosovo;
and, if necessary, to seriously damage the Serbian military’s capacity to
harm the people of Kosovo. In short, if President Milosevic will not make
peace, we will limit his ability to make war.
 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ 177

These objectives would be achieved through an ‘undiminished, unceasing,

and unrelenting’ bombing campaign in which NATO would ‘persist until we
prevail’.95 Clinton assured the Congress and the American people that suf-
ficient force would be used to minimize the risk to US forces and to accom-
plish their mission successfully.
Throughout the operation, Clinton frequently repeated the mantra that
had become so commonplace during the war in Bosnia: ‘I do not intend to
put our troops in Kosovo to fight a war.’96 The US would only introduce
ground troops into Kosovo in order to oversee the province’s demilitariza-
tion once Serbia had accepted the peace agreement. The Vietnam syndrome
clearly influenced Clinton’s decision to restrict the use of force to an air war.
As he told Dan Rather of CBS News on March 31:

[T]he thing that bothers me about introducing ground troops into a hos-
tile situation – into Kosovo and into the Balkans – is the prospect of never
being able to get them out. If you have a peace agreement, even if it’s dif-
ficult and even if you have to stay a little longer than you thought you
would, like in Bosnia, at least there is an exit strategy, and it’s a manage-
able situation. If you go into a hostile environment … you could be put
in a position of, for example, creating a Kosovar enclave that would keep
you there forever.97

NATO military analysts had produced a study in October 1998 that sug-
gested up to 200,000 troops would be needed to effectively secure and pro-
tect Kosovo. Even a lower estimate of 75,000 troops fighting their way into
Kosovo after a major air assault was deemed unacceptably high by the White
House, where one senior official claimed, ‘The idea of troops never had any
traction that I remember.’ The decision not to invade with ground forces was
apparently taken ‘easily and with little internal dissent’.98 It appeared that
the use of air power rather than ground troops to resolve conflicts was
becoming an established strategy and clearly one designed with the Vietnam
syndrome in mind. The Washington Post characterized the Clinton presi-
dency as one ‘full of tempered violence abroad, delivered nearly always by
air and most often by pilotless “standoff munitions” ’ such as cruise mis-
siles.99 This method had proved successful in Bosnia, in ongoing punitive
strikes against Iraq, and in response to terrorist acts perpetrated by the
al-Qaeda network led by Osama Bin Laden. Arnold Kanter, a former member
of the Bush administration, referred somewhat mockingly to this approach
as ‘a doctrine of immaculate coercion’.100
Although there were no NATO casualties and the Milosevic government
finally submitted to NATO demands on June 10, the operation went far from
smoothly. In the early days of the bombing campaign, bad weather dimin-
ished the effectiveness of NATO’s attacks and Serb forces systematically esca-
lated their campaign to ‘ethnically cleanse’ Kosovo Albanians from the
178 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

province. During NATO’s war against Yugoslavia some 800,000 Albanians

fled Kosovo and tens of thousands more sought refuge in the hills. The
administration was criticized for having exacerbated a situation it claimed to
have intervened to stop. As MccGwire argues, ‘while Serb forces were clearly
the instrument of the unfolding “humanitarian disaster”, NATO’s long-
trailered urge to war was undoubtedly a primary cause’.101 If this fact raised
questions about the morality of the intervention, greater criticism still could
be levelled against the way NATO, led by the US, had conducted the war.
Although it succeeded in its objective of deploying a NATO force into Kosovo
to demilitarize the province and protect its population, the alliance ‘took
unto itself the role of judge, jury and executioner’. While claiming to act on
behalf of the international community, NATO was prepared to ‘slight the UN
and skirt international law in order to enforce its collective judgement’.102
The legitimacy of many of NATO’s targets was also open to question.
Between March 24 and June 10, NATO flew over 27,000 sorties and deliv-
ered more than 23,000 bombs and missiles in the first attack on a sovereign
nation in its 50-year history. There was considerable disquiet throughout the
bombing campaign and at its conclusion about the apparent preponderance
of civilian targets being hit, whether deliberately or by mistake. In late
March, Clinton had insisted, ‘We have worked very hard to minimize the
risks of collateral damage.’ He admitted though that civilians were at risk: ‘I
don’t want a lot of innocent Serbian civilians to die because they have a man
running their country that’s doing something atrocious. But some of them
are at risk because of that and must be, because we have targets that we need
to go after.’103
Around 1500 Serb civilians were killed in the NATO onslaught, not least
because as the bombing campaign continued the list of legitimate targets
was extended to include those of ‘dual’ civilian and military use such as
bridges, factories, television and radio stations, water and electrical supply
stations, and heating plants. Although the Pentagon emphasized the use of
‘precision-guided weapons’ and ‘surgical hits’ there were several embarrass-
ing mistakes such as bombing a railway bridge in Serbia as a civilian train
passed onto it, strafing a convoy of refugees in Kosovo, and the diplomati-
cally disastrous destruction of a wing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
The many attacks on targets in heavily populated areas of Belgrade and
other cities seemed in contravention of the 1977 protocol of the Geneva
Convention that prohibited ‘attacks on undefended or demilitarised areas’
or those that would lead to ‘an excessive loss of life or injury to civilians’.
Unease about the level of civilian casualties was reflected in opinion polls.
In late May, Gallup found that while 48 per cent of Americans believed the
Clinton administration was ‘doing everything possible’ to minimize civilian
casualties, almost as many (46 per cent) believed it ‘could do more’.104 The
tactic that received the greatest criticism was the use of cluster bombs, since
many of those dropped over Kosovo and Serbia went astray, killing and
 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ 179

maiming civilians, and over 11,000 bomblets were thought to remain

unexploded across Yugoslavia. Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs
concluded that:

As a democracy committed to upholding international law, we have an

obligation to hold our own side to even higher moral standards than
those we impose on others. … Unlike the Serbian paramilitary troops,
American pilots did not set out intentionally to murder women and chil-
dren, and could not see the faces of the people they killed. But from the
point of view of the victims, the end result was much the same.105

The US had fought what it considered to be a just war in Kosovo, based on

humanitarian concerns that were in the finest tradition of American values
and principles to defend. Yet the methods used raised serious questions
about whether the US was acting in ways consistent with its supposedly
exceptional role in world affairs.
It has been suggested that Kosovo, together with Bill Clinton’s various
other diplomatic successes, may provide the best opportunity for him to
have a lasting foreign policy legacy.106 However, the American public were
far from convinced that the victory in Kosovo was a major success for
Clinton or that it demonstrated his resolve to effectively use force in the pur-
suit of an apparently just cause and thus re-establish the credibility of the
US internationally. Only 46 per cent of Americans in the immediate after-
math of the conflict saw it as ‘a significant US foreign policy achievement’
and 48 per cent believed it was not. The public was also evenly divided over
whether the situation in Kosovo had been worth going to war for in the first
place. Clinton himself was given ‘minimal credit’ for achieving a solution
to the crisis and, unlike other presidents who had led successful military
operations, did not find his approval rating boosted by victory. Two-thirds
of Americans also did not believe the war in Kosovo would help deter ‘other
governments around the world from committing human rights atrocities
such as mass killings or ethnic cleansing’. Yet despite these relatively nega-
tive views of the Kosovo intervention, Gallup also found that Americans
remained ‘decidedly internationalist’. A sizeable majority (61 per cent) con-
tinued to believe that it was better for the US to ‘take an active part in world
affairs’ rather than to stay out of them. Three-quarters of Americans
approved of US troops participating in peacekeeping operations under UN
command. Most significantly perhaps, two-thirds of those polled believed
that the US should ‘continue to respond to international human rights
atrocities with military force’.107 As with earlier evidence concerning the
public reaction to the Somalia debacle, it would appear that Americans have
a greater tolerance for their government exercising its military might than
their public officials are usually willing to give them credit for. Yet the
relatively muted popular response to the conflict over Kosovo suggests that
180 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

attitudes towards the use of force remain somewhat ambiguous and that the
debate over when, where and how to intervene in the post-Vietnam era,
even in support of causes perceived as humanitarian in nature, is far from
being resolved.

Conclusions

Bill Clinton did leave office with a higher approval rating than any previous
president since polling began in the 1930s. In December 2000, 66 per cent
of Americans approved of the way Clinton was running the country, three
points higher than Ronald Reagan at the end of his presidency. Throughout
his final year in office, Clinton maintained an unusually high 59 per cent
average approval rating. His continued popularity, however, seemed to owe
more to the extraordinary economic boom he presided over than to his
foreign policy achievements.108 Indeed, throughout 2000, only 4–5 per cent
of Americans considered foreign affairs to be the most pressing issue facing
the country. In an election year it was education, social security and the
maintenance of the economy that occupied the public’s minds.109 Given
that Clinton’s stated objective on becoming president was to revive the
US economy, his presidency could be considered a resounding success.
Foreign affairs did, however, occupy a considerable amount of Clinton’s
time, increasingly so during his second term. From the beginning of his
presidency he had attempted to pursue a foreign policy that was ‘highly
moralistic and seemingly based on ideals’. Clinton clearly shared with his
predecessors ‘a motivating sense of American exceptionalism’.110 In his pub-
lic pronouncements he frequently asserted that the US had an important
leadership role to play in world affairs and went so far as to proclaim that it
was the world’s only indispensable nation. The policy of enlargement was
rooted in ideas of the universal applicability of American values and princi-
ples. The administration claimed that an overarching concern for humani-
tarianism deeply influenced its policies towards Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo,
Haiti and elsewhere. Clinton and his advisers were also keen, particularly in
the early months of the administration, to advocate the multilateral resolu-
tion of international problems, although usually under the leadership of the
US, in order to lend greater legitimacy to its actions.
As his presidency progressed, however, the realities of international rela-
tions and the administration’s ability to do something about them, together
with domestic challenges such as the Republican takeover of the Congress
in the 1994 mid-term elections, meant Clinton’s ‘heavy foreign policy ide-
alism’ was increasingly tempered by ‘a greater sense of political realism’.111
Most of all, it became apparent that the ‘indispensable nation’ could
not solve all the world’s problems and that there remained strict limits to
what the US could achieve internationally. The enlargement policy is an
instructive example. From its beginnings, critics such as Henry Kissinger
 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’ 181

condemned the strategy for lacking ‘operational terms’, and so it proved in

many ways. The policy was a ‘less-than-adequate foreign policy guide for
addressing specific problems in Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Russia, and Central
Europe’.112 In each of these cases, more political and strategic concerns about
the national interest came to govern policy and made the US slow to act, if
it did at all, even when pressing humanitarian issues were present.
In 1998 and early 1999, the Monica Lewinsky affair and the subsequent
impeachment and trial of President Clinton dominated the American polit-
ical agenda. During this time, the president seemed to become increasingly
interested in foreign affairs and began to travel abroad more. McCormick
suggests that Clinton did so ‘to illustrate that he was continuing to conduct
the matters of state, to present a sense of normalcy, and to downplay [the
Lewinsky] issue’.113 Critics suggested, however, the president was deliberately
turning more and more to foreign policy in order to deflect attention away
from his domestic troubles. The timing of certain foreign policy actions
seemed particularly suspicious. On August 20, 1998, immediately after his
grand jury testimony in the Lewinsky affair, Clinton ordered airstrikes
against targets in Sudan and Afghanistan in response to terrorist acts perpe-
trated by the al-Qaeda network. On December 17, on the eve of the vote on
articles of impeachment in the House of Representatives, Clinton again
ordered airstrikes, this time against Iraq due to its resistance to UN weapons
inspections. The Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott led congres-
sional criticisms saying he could not support the attack because: ‘Both the
timing and the policy are subject to question.’ Republican House Majority
Leader Richard Armey refused to accuse Clinton of manufacturing a crisis
but did suggest that:

the suspicion some people have about the president’s motives in this
attack is itself a powerful argument for impeachment. After months of
lies, the president has given millions of people around the world reason
to doubt that he has sent Americans into battle for the right reasons.114

Clinton, of course, denied any such charges and the public seemed to
believe him, with polls showing three-quarters of Americans supporting the
airstrikes and almost two-thirds rejecting claims the president had ordered
the attacks to delay the House vote on impeachment or divert attention
from the Lewinsky affair.115 Nonetheless, Clinton did seem all too ready to
resort to what was dubbed ‘cruise missile diplomacy’.
This heavy reliance on air power to force compliance in foreign affairs was
also present in Bosnia and Kosovo and is directly related to the persistence
of the Vietnam syndrome during the Clinton administration. Indeed, like
all his post-Vietnam predecessors, Bill Clinton adhered to the main tenets
of the syndrome when deciding where, when and how to use US military
force. He did so in response to all the major foreign policy crises of his
182 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

presidency where the use of force was an issue: in the decision to withdraw
from Somalia; during the unforced invasion of Haiti in 1994; the continued
use of air power to punish Iraq for violating UN resolutions; the eventual
decision to use force in Bosnia; the refusal to commit forces to halt the con-
flict in Rwanda; the use of airstrikes to punish Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda
terrorist network; and the reliance on air power rather than ground troops
against Serbia in the war over Kosovo. The Vietnam syndrome was also fur-
ther codified in PDD 25. Although Clinton authorized the use of force on
more occasions than any previous post-Vietnam president, he did so only
under the strictest conditions. Air power was predominantly used in order
to limit the likelihood of American casualties and to allow greater opportu-
nities for withdrawing from conflicts without US troops becoming ensnared
in long commitments in hostile environments. Clinton was adamant
throughout the crises in Bosnia and Kosovo that US ground troops would
not be introduced until peace agreements had been settled. For critics, such
an approach raised serious questions about the ability of the US to achieve
important international objectives. On January 3, 1999, for example,
Andrew Bacevich gave a scathing indictment of Clinton’s use of force in the
Washington Post. He wrote of

… the extraordinary importance assigned to avoiding US casualties,

thereby advertising America’s own point of vulnerability; the hand-
wringing preoccupation with collateral damage, signalling the United
States has no stomach for war as such and thereby encouraging adver-
saries to persevere; the reliance on high technology weapons employed
at long range, inviting confusion between the technical capability to hit
targets and the achievement of operationally meaningful results; vaguely
formulated objectives often explained in terms of ‘sending messages’ –
allowing for facile claims of ‘success’ and the prompt recall of the forces
engaged.116

It is clear that US military actions during the Clinton administration

continued to be constrained by the Vietnam syndrome.
In common with other post-Vietnam presidents, Bill Clinton struggled
with questions of how both values and interests, power and principle should
influence US foreign policy. The belief in American exceptionalism, and in
particular its missionary strand, continued to provide the framework within
which this discussion took place. The Clinton administration appeared
determined from the outset to base its foreign policy on traditional
American principles but frequently found its ability to do so limited, often
by the continuing legacy of the Vietnam War.
8
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 pro-
claimed 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 excep-
tionalism 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.
Some Americans have believed that because the US is a special nation it
should provide an example to the rest of the world but remain aloof from
international disputes and conflicts. These have been identified as followers
of the exemplary strand of American exceptionalism. Others have con-
cluded that the exceptional nature of the US places certain responsibilities
and duties on the nation to protect the higher values of humanity wherever
they are threatened. These Americans, therefore, adhere to the missionary
strand of American exceptionalism. The basic tension, or indeed conflict,
between these two main strands of exceptionalism has been at the centre of
debates over the appropriate course and direction of US foreign policy.
Although their purposes were different, even diametrically opposed, advo-
cates on all sides of the major debates have tended to couch their arguments
in the language of American exceptionalism. They have done so even when
they had perfectly good practical reasons for justifying their positions.

183
184 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

The anti-imperialists and the expansionists of 1898–1900, the isolationists

and internationalists of the 1920s–30s, and the hawks and doves of the
1960s, all shared a common discourse based on the traditional belief that
the US is a special nation, even if they did conceive of that exceptionalism
in different ways.
This commonality of language persisted in the post-Vietnam period
despite the different perspectives of each administration. Presidents Ford,
Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton all had very different political agendas,
presidential styles, and problems and crises to deal with. Each of them, even
the so-called status quo president George Bush, spoke of taking the US in
new directions. Yet each of them, in their own way, employed rhetoric
steeped in the belief in American exceptionalism.
The basic assumption that the US is a special nation with a special destiny
has been frequently challenged by the realities of American history. Yet the
belief in exceptionalism has proved remarkably resilient. It survived, for
example, the American Civil War, the Great Debate over Imperialism, and
the Great Depression. This book has shown that the belief in American
exceptionalism also survived the so-called trauma of the Vietnam War. As
we have seen, the idea of exceptionalism does not imply that the United
States is a perfect nation. Americans recognize that the US has problems the
same as any other nation. Part of the belief in the exceptional nature of the
United States, however, is the conviction that although problems exist,
none of them is insurmountable. Americans regard themselves as being
uniquely able, given time, to overcome the imperfections of their society.
The US is, after all, an experiment in human society and, as with all exper-
iments, mistakes are made that are learned from and then progress contin-
ues. Enough of this self-belief remained intact for Americans to believe they
could still progress towards a more perfect union even after setbacks as
apparently traumatic and divisive as Vietnam. The belief in American excep-
tionalism is highly resilient, largely because it can be expressed and applied
in so many different ways; therefore it survived Vietnam as it had other
times of trial in American history.

Post-Vietnam foreign policy and the belief in

American exceptionalism

While the Vietnam War did not destroy the belief in American exceptional-
ism, it did have an impact upon it. Public confidence in the special nature
of the US and its ability to fulfil its special destiny was shaken. Each post-
Vietnam president, therefore, consistently attempted to bolster American
self-confidence. In foreign policy, the Vietnam War had very specific conse-
quences for the belief in exceptionalism. One aspect of this belief is the
notion that the US is the greatest nation on earth, which, because it is supe-
rior, will always be successful and achieve its goals. The defeat in Vietnam,
 Conclusions 185

however, had revealed that the US was not invincible and raised serious
questions about the nation’s strength and resolve. Second, critics argued the
US had conducted the war in Vietnam contrary to the high morals, values
and principles that made the United States an exceptional nation. The task
for post-Vietnam presidents, therefore, if they were to restore the belief
that the United States was an exceptional nation, would be to demonstrate
that: first, the US had the strength and resolve to maintain its position as the
greatest nation on earth; and second, that it could conduct itself in ways
consistent with its values and principles.
In each post-Vietnam administration, US foreign policy action failed to
live up to the high principles and claims of presidential rhetoric. Gerald Ford
sought to ‘heal the nation’s wounds’ and made much use of the rhetoric of
American exceptionalism. He attempted, through his response to the
Mayaguez incident, to demonstrate American strength and resolve but he set
a pattern for the post-Vietnam period of American presidents standing tall
rhetorically while undertaking limited action abroad. The Mayaguez rescue
operation was certainly designed to demonstrate that the US, despite
Vietnam, was not unwilling to employ its military might to meet foreign
policy crises, but it was a deliberately limited engagement that had little
long-term effect on perceptions of American resolve. The decision making
process also reveals that any moral concerns for the safety of the Mayaguez
crew were secondary to strategic and political interests.
Jimmy Carter’s self-proclaimed objective was to restore the ‘moral com-
pass’ to US foreign policy making. He attempted to follow a foreign policy
rooted in what he perceived as the values and principles upon which the US
was founded. More than Ford, Carter was attempting to conduct a foreign
policy consistent with the belief in American exceptionalism, particularly
through his human rights policy. But the record of Carter’s administration
shows that moral principles, even in the application of the human rights
policy, were usually superseded by strategic, economic and political inter-
ests. Despite repeated appeals to exceptionalist rhetoric, Carter also failed
to revive American self-confidence and in fact was widely criticized for con-
tributing to the sense that the US was in decline.
Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, was the greatest advocate of the belief
in American exceptionalism during the post-Vietnam era. Reagan imbued
his public pronouncements with exceptionalist symbolism and imagery. He
was a true believer in the special nature of his country. He sought to over-
come the crisis of confidence in the US by largely denying that any problems
existed. Reagan insisted that the United States was the greatest nation on
earth and that so long as Americans maintained that belief they would be able
to overcome any crises they faced. In foreign policy, he took a tough rhetori-
cal stance against the Soviet Union, conducted a massive arms build-up, and
demonstrated a willingness to employ force, all in an attempt to overcome the
perception of weakness that had characterized Carter’s presidency.
186 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

Reagan succeeded in bolstering American self-confidence but his claims

that the US had renewed its strength and overcome the limits imposed by
Vietnam were largely illusory. Despite standing tall rhetorically, Reagan was
still reluctant to employ the full power of the US to back up his strong
words. For all the posturing of his foreign policy rhetoric, the Reagan admin-
istration only employed US military force twice and then in extremely low-
risk, limited operations against Grenada and Libya. The only other major
deployment of armed force was as part of the ill-fated peacekeeping opera-
tion in Lebanon. Otherwise the administration was only prepared to use
force by proxy in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Afghanistan. Ronald Reagan
was certainly an activist foreign policy president but his interventions were
more constrained than his image would suggest. Reagan did also couch all
his foreign policy in terms of American exceptionalism but, as with other
presidents, the major determinants of his policies were strategic, economic
and political. Despite his insistence that all his actions were taken in keep-
ing with the values and principles on which the US was founded, policies
such as the covert war in Nicaragua and his exchange of arms for hostages
with Iran indicated that the reality of Reagan’s foreign policy did not live up
to the claims of his exceptionalist rhetoric.
George Bush admitted to having a problem with what he called the ‘vision
thing’, but he, like his predecessors, utilized the language of American
exceptionalism in his foreign policy. In Panama and the Persian Gulf War,
Bush authorized the two largest uses of American military force since the
Vietnam War. He appeared to be demonstrating the strength and resolve of
the US not only with words but also with action. Each operation, however,
was carefully planned to ensure that American engagement would be lim-
ited in objectives, length and costs. Despite Bush’s declarations to the con-
trary, American action continued to be constrained by the experience of
Vietnam. Although he couched his foreign policy in exceptionalist terms,
strategic, political and economic interests were the main determinants of
policy during his administration.
Bill Clinton, too, couched his foreign policy in terms of American excep-
tionalism. He repeatedly identified the US as ‘the world’s only indispensable
nation’ and advocated American leadership in world affairs. Clinton made
‘democratic enlargement’ one of the cornerstones of his foreign policy. The
US would actively support and promote the spread of democracy and free
market economies throughout the world. This policy, like so many before it,
was underpinned by the idea that unique American values, principles and
practices had universal applications. Clinton also used American military
power more often than any of his post-Vietnam predecessors. Despite claims
of a foreign policy based on moral values and principles, however, the
administration had a mixed record on intervening in conflicts to prevent
humanitarian disasters, acting only belatedly in Bosnia and refusing to inter-
vene in Rwanda. Even in more successful operations such as in Kosovo there
 Conclusions 187

were strict limitations placed on how US forces would be used, thus indi-
cating that the experience of Vietnam continued to constrain US foreign
policy.
Several conclusions can be drawn from this analysis of post-Vietnam US
administrations. It is clear that US foreign policy is usually driven by strate-
gic, economic, political or other practical interests and only occasionally do
notions of exceptionalism provide the key stimulus for policy. Even when
the belief in the exceptional nature of the US and the perception of its spe-
cial duties and responsibilities do dictate the course of policy, if strategic and
political concerns arise they usually will take precedence over the initial
moral imperatives. This was the case in, for example, Somalia where the
original decision to commit troops based on the duty to prevent a human-
itarian disaster was later overturned when political and strategic interests
made the continued presence of US troops unacceptable despite the human-
itarian concerns remaining salient. Only very rarely have political and eco-
nomic interests been overturned by moral imperatives as, for example, when
Ford insisted the US had a moral duty to admit Vietnamese refugees into the
country following the fall of Saigon.
The fact that all post-Vietnam presidents have, nonetheless, couched their
foreign policies in the language of American exceptionalism begs the ques-
tion of whether the use of exceptionalist rhetoric is simply a manipulative
tool designed to win public approval for policy. Do American policy makers
reach their desired policy then cloak it in terms they believe will assure the
greatest possible public and congressional support? Certainly officials
within each post-Vietnam administration acknowledged that couching pol-
icy in terms of exceptionalism would have positive effects on public opin-
ion, but to suggest that this is the only reason for such language being
employed would be to ignore other evidence. Nowhere in the public or
archive record analysed here, including declassified accounts of NSC meet-
ings, is it even implied that once a particular course has been chosen it will
then be packaged in exceptionalist terms. In fact, exceptionalist language is
not only used in public explanations of policy but is also used by policy
makers themselves behind closed doors. Presidents and their foreign policy
advisers frequently use arguments couched in exceptionalist language dur-
ing private meetings and in personal memoranda. They do so even when
perfectly good practical arguments for policy options exist and they often
phrase even strategic, economic or political justifications in exceptionalist
terms. The belief in American exceptionalism, therefore, provides the frame-
work for discourse in US foreign policy making even if it is rarely the main
determining factor of policy itself.
Another common thread in each post-Vietnam president’s rhetoric and,
indeed, that of many of their predecessors, is the invocation of some golden
past when the United States did live up to its exceptional values and prin-
ciples. Ford, Carter and Reagan all advocated the need for the US to return
188 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

to their basic principles and use them to overcome contemporary problems.

Yet when was this golden era of exceptionalism? At no time in American his-
tory has there been a true consensus even about what it is that makes the
US so special. Moreover, Americans have struggled throughout their history
with societal problems concerning race, gender, ethnicity, religion, poverty,
politics, economics or some other social factor. In foreign policy too, the
determination of President Carter, for example, to ‘restore the moral com-
pass’ to American foreign policy assumes that at some point the US did
conduct its foreign affairs in accordance with moral principles. Such an
assumption, though, is problematic. Even at times when the US claimed to
be conducting policy based on moral reasoning, other more practical factors
were usually major determinants of American action and the actual conduct
of policy was rarely beyond moral reproach. The history of US foreign rela-
tions is riddled with instances, such as the Spanish–American War and the
subsequent Philippine–American War, where moral imperatives were super-
seded by strategic and economic interests. Nevertheless, part of the belief in
exceptionalism is for Americans to redefine, or even ignore, the problems of
the past if they do not seem to fit with the conviction that the US has
nothing but benign intentions towards the rest of the world.
American self-confidence has largely recovered from the doubts and con-
cerns raised by the Vietnam period. The Reagan presidency in particular was
successful in revitalizing American self-belief, mostly through a determined
application of exceptionalist rhetoric. American self-belief remains vulnera-
ble, however, not least because positive rhetoric and a strong foreign policy
are often not enough to guarantee a general mood of confidence in the
country. As Presidents Ford, Carter and Bush found to their detriment, the
health of the American economy has often outweighed all other concerns
during the post-Vietnam period. The failure of each of those presidents to
secure a second period in office was due largely to their inability to over-
come problems in the economy. Conversely, President Clinton’s high
approval rating, even when he was facing impeachment, can be attributed
on the whole to his presiding over a booming American economy. While the
use of exceptionalist rhetoric and the pursuit of a strong foreign policy will
continue to buoy American self-confidence, the impact of the domestic
agenda must not be forgotten.

American exceptionalism and the legacy of Vietnam

While American exceptionalism has continued to provide the framework for

foreign policy discourse in the post-Vietnam era, the Vietnam syndrome has
emerged as a major influence upon policy making concerning the use of force.
Although there is no nationwide consensus on the lessons of the Vietnam
War, a pattern has developed in policy making that has remained relatively
consistent across post-Vietnam administrations. When an administration is
 Conclusions 189

confronted with a foreign policy crisis it will only authorize the use of force
if just cause can be demonstrated, the objectives are clear and compelling,
and victory can be achieved swiftly and with minimal casualties. These con-
ditions for the use of force form the content of the Vietnam syndrome and
have become increasingly institutionalized with each successive adminis-
tration. They have been codified in the Weinberger Doctrine and the Powell
Doctrine. Even though, as Colin Powell himself has argued, administration
officials do not formally go down a list checking off the specific conditions
of the Vietnam syndrome, it is clear from public and archival accounts of
the decision making process that deliberate steps are taken to ensure these
conditions are met before force is authorized. The planning and conduct of
all major uses of force since the Vietnam War – the Mayaguez operation; the
aborted Iranian hostage rescue; Lebanon; Grenada; Libya; Panama; the Gulf
War; Somalia; Bosnia; Kosovo – have been directly influenced by the Vietnam
syndrome. In conjunction with various economic, strategic, political and
sometimes moral interests, the Vietnam syndrome has been a central factor
determining how, when and where US administrations have threatened or
used force since the end of the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam syndrome and the belief in American exceptionalism are not
unconnected. The syndrome actually has the effect of reinforcing and per-
petuating crucial elements of the belief in American exceptionalism. The
Vietnam syndrome is designed specifically to ensure that the US does not
commit itself to another conflict like the Vietnam War. A central purpose of
the syndrome is to avoid situations in which the US could suffer another
military defeat. By following policy based on the Vietnam syndrome, US
policy makers can be reasonably assured of achieving victory and thus rein-
forcing the belief that the United States is an exceptional nation that always
succeeds in its objectives. The Vietnam syndrome also prevents the US from
undertaking military commitments involving long-term occupations of
hostile foreign territory. This requirement perpetuates the exceptionalist
notion that the US does not seek the conquest and subjugation of foreign
nations. Finally, and most significantly, if it follows the Vietnam syndrome,
the US will only use force in situations where Americans can perceive a just
cause. As noted throughout this book, whenever a just cause is conceived by
American policy makers, no matter whether its roots are economic, strate-
gic, political, or otherwise, it will be couched in terms of American excep-
tionalism. By following what is perceived as a just cause, any administration
will perpetuate the belief that the US only pursues policy which is consis-
tent with its exceptional values and principles. In this sense, the belief in
exceptionalism is self-perpetuating and the Vietnam syndrome does noth-
ing to change that situation; in fact it reinforces it. The Vietnam syndrome
developed in direct response to the perceived military, political and strate-
gic costs of the Vietnam War. However, because the belief in American
exceptionalism provides the framework for foreign policy discourse, the
190 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

tenets of the Vietnam syndrome are couched in terms that embody certain
notions of exceptionalism.
The Vietnam syndrome acts as a constraint on American action in world
affairs. It places limits on the strength, resolve and capabilities of a nation
which Americans regard as all-powerful and superior to other nations. In
this sense the power of the Vietnam syndrome in American foreign policy
making suggests that the US is no longer an exceptional nation but is just
as limited in its action as any other country. Yet, paradoxically, the Vietnam
syndrome actually acts as a guarantor of the continued acceptance of the
belief in American exceptionalism. If the Vietnam syndrome is followed
then the US can continue to be at least perceived as an exceptional nation
because it will always win its wars, it will remain committed to its tradition
of not conquering foreign land for territorial expansion, and it will only
resort to force in the pursuit of just causes.
The nature of the Vietnam syndrome is a clear example, then, of how the
belief in American exceptionalism frames the discourse of US foreign policy.
This discourse affects policy in an almost unseen, unthinking manner. It
appears automatic for American public officials to conceive their policies in
terms that represent some notion of the exceptional nature of the US. They
do so not simply because it will be politically advantageous but because
those terms form a natural part of the language they use to understand the
world around them.
This book has shown that in the post-Vietnam period, Americans have
continued to conceive their foreign policy, debate its course, and criticize
its faults in terms that consistently reflect some notion of the exceptional
nature of the United States. Although practical considerations will remain
central to US foreign policy making, the belief in American exceptionalism
will persist as an essential element of the cultural and intellectual framework
within which policy is made. As National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice
has argued: ‘I am a realist. Power matters. But there can be no absence of
moral content in American foreign policy and, furthermore, the American
people wouldn’t accept such an absence.’2 This view is further reflected in the
recent US National Security Strategy. According to the published strategy, it
is ‘based on a distinctly American internationalism that reflects the union of
our values and our national interests’. The document sits firmly within the
tradition of the missionary strand of the belief in American exceptionalism.
It advocates American leadership in world affairs and argues that the ‘aim of
this strategy is to help make the world not just safer but better’.3
The Vietnam syndrome will also maintain its prevalence in foreign policy
decision making for the foreseeable future, meaning that US military force
will only be employed under relatively strict conditions. American presi-
dents have become more willing to use force in order to achieve foreign pol-
icy objectives as the memory of Vietnam has become an ever more distant
memory. However, the legacy of the war continues to shape where, when
 Conclusions 191

and how force will be applied. The main long-term consequences have been
a general reluctance to commit ground forces to potentially difficult combat
situations and an increasingly heavy reliance on massive air power to fight
America’s wars. There is a certain irony to this latter consequence since the
massive air bombardments of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia failed to prevent
American objectives being defeated thirty years ago. It would be perfectly
reasonable to conclude that one lesson of the Vietnam War is that large scale
strategic bombing is ineffective. Yet this tactic has been employed more and
more in the post-Vietnam era, as the analysis of US interventions in this
book has shown. Meanwhile, the assumption that the Vietnam syndrome is
sustained by public sensitivity towards American casualties appears increas-
ingly misplaced. Recent evidence from the Clinton presidency suggests that
elite perceptions of public sensitivity are overstated and that the Vietnam
syndrome holds greater sway over policy makers than it does the public at
large. Nonetheless, if a US military intervention should become long, bloody
and, most importantly, inconclusive, then opponents will invoke the mem-
ory of Vietnam and call for the withdrawal of American forces as they did
in Somalia.

George W. Bush and the war on terrorism

The discourse of American exceptionalism and the dynamics of the Vietnam

syndrome have been conspicuously present in George W. Bush’s campaign
against international terrorism since September 11, 2001. As we have seen,
Bush believes that the al-Qaeda network, led by Osama Bin Laden, launched
its attacks against targets in the United States for the very fact that the US is
an exceptional nation. Bush called the attacks ‘acts of war’ and declared his
administration’s determination to root out international terrorists and those
who harbour them. Bush claimed that ‘Freedom and democracy are under
attack’ and described the ensuing conflict in stark Manichean terms: ‘This
will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil. But good will prevail.’4
Bush made clear that although the attacks had taken the lives of civilians
of many nationalities, and although the war on terrorism would be pursued
by a multilateral coalition, the US was very much its leader. He told the
Congress: ‘We will rally the world to this cause.’ He claimed that the world
relied on American leadership: ‘The advance of human freedom … now
depends on us.’ In words reminiscent of so many of his predecessors, Bush
declared, ‘this country will define our times, not be defined by them. As long
as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an
age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the world.’ It was
not only American national interests, security and credibility that were at
stake. According to Bush: ‘We are in a fight for our principles.’5
On September 19, 2001, Bush claimed in a news conference that the
‘mindset of war must change’ in the campaign against terrorism. He argued
192 American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam

that: ‘It is a different type of battle. It’s a different type of battlefield. It’s a
different type of war.’6 Yet US military tactics in the first campaign of the
war on terrorism bore a remarkable resemblance to those used in other
recent conflicts such as Kosovo and the Gulf War. The war on terrorism
began with operations to destroy al-Qaeda’s bases in Afghanistan and to
punish the country’s leadership, the Taliban, for harbouring Bin Laden and
his organization. The focus was on the use of massive air bombardments of
Taliban and al-Qaeda targets. The use of ground troops was largely limited
to sporadic and swift special forces operations and the deployment of US
advisers and operatives with the Northern Alliance forces who had been
fighting a long-term war against the Taliban. A New York Times/CBS News
poll found that a majority of Americans were ‘prepared to accept the deaths
of several thousand American troops’ in the war against terrorism. The
attacks on New York and Washington would, the New York Times suggested,
‘give any United States decision to dispatch ground forces a kind of moral
imperative that American involvement in Vietnam lacked’.7 Nonetheless,
the Bush administration was hesitant to commit large numbers of US
ground troops, preferring to leave the majority of the ground fighting to
Northern Alliance forces. As the war progressed, the hunt for Bin Laden and
other al-Qaeda leaders moved into the caves of the mountainous Tora Bora
region. Even then, incentives such as weapons, clothing and money were
given to Northern Alliance commanders to encourage them to search the
cave networks rather than committing large numbers of US ground troops
to fulfil this potentially dangerous mission.8 Conservative columnist
William Kristol criticized the Bush administration for trying to fight the war
‘with half-measures’ and Senator John McCain, a Vietnam veteran, also
accused the president of making the Pentagon wage war ‘with one hand tied
behind its back’. Not all lawmakers seemed to agree, however, since they
were still ‘haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam’ which New York Times reporters
claimed had risen like ‘an unwelcome specter from an unhappy past’. It
seemed clear that while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other
Pentagon spokespeople were ‘careful not to exclude a substantial ground
force’ they were ‘clearly holding out the hope that it will not be needed’.9 It
was clear that the fear of the war in Afghanistan turning into another quag-
mire like Vietnam had an important influence on the way American mili-
tary force was employed.
When Bush claimed the war on terrorism was ‘a fight for our principles’
he also claimed that ‘our first responsibility is to live by them’.10 Yet the
administration was often criticized for undermining those principles in the
conduct of the war. The treatment of prisoners-of-war came under particu-
lar scrutiny. In November 2001, an estimated 230 al-Qaeda and Taliban pris-
oners were killed in bombing raids on the Qala-i-Jhangi fort during a siege
following an attempted prisoner break-out. Amnesty International was
among the organizations that questioned the ‘proportionality of the
 Conclusions 193

response’.11 In January 2002, the Bush administration began flying captured

al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners from Afghanistan to the US military base in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they were held under conditions which drew
scrutiny from the world’s media and the International Red Cross. Prisoners
were shackled, hooded, forced to shave their beards and heads, and kept in
small cages exposed to the elements. The greatest criticisms were levelled at
the administration’s refusal to accord the captives rights as prisoners-of-war
under the Geneva Conventions. They were instead characterized as ‘unlaw-
ful combatants’, a term not recognized in international law. It was argued
by critics that through this denial of the basic human rights of prisoners the
US would ‘squander’ the moral high ground it had occupied since
September 11.12
From the outset, President Bush warned the American people that the war
on terrorism might be long and arduous: ‘You will be asked for your
patience; for, the conflict will not be short. You will be asked for resolve; for,
the conflict will not be easy. You will be asked for your strength, because the
course to victory may be long.’13 The unprecedented popularity of the pres-
ident and his handling of the war seemed to indicate that the US was finally
willing again to conduct military interventions other than those that are
short, low-risk, and easily achieved. Nonetheless, as argued here, steps have
been taken to meet the ongoing requirements of the Vietnam syndrome in
this conflict. It is also possible, if not likely, that the war’s popularity will
begin to fade as it becomes more prolonged and success and progress less
easy to measure. At the time of writing, Osama Bin Laden is still at large and
al-Qaeda continues to perpetrate acts of terrorism throughout the world.
With the Bush administration poised to take the fight to Iraq next, the
potential quagmire that George W. Bush’s father deliberately avoided may
be entered into soon.
The war on terrorism shows that the formation and presentation of US
foreign policy continues to be couched in exceptionalist terms. The belief in
American exceptionalism still provides the framework for the discourse of
US foreign policy making and conduct. The legacy of the Vietnam War, how-
ever, also still influences the way in which policy is conducted, particularly
in the application of the use of force. While the US will attempt to ‘fight
freedom’s fight’ in order to ‘lead the world toward the values that will bring
lasting peace’,14 it will do so in ways that minimize the possibility that
the country will become ensnared in another Vietnam that could further
challenge the belief in American exceptionalism.
Notes

1 American Exceptionalism: An Introduction

1. George W. Bush, ‘Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation,
September 11, 2001’, White House Office of the Press Secretary.
2. Bush’s response to the attacks was particularly well received in the immediate after-
math of the events. A Gallup poll conducted on September 14–15, 2001 saw the
president’s approval rating jump 35 points to 86 per cent (the previous poll was
conducted from September 7–10). This was the highest rallying effect on presi-
dential approval in Gallup’s polling history and the fourth highest approval rating
ever measured for a president. One week after the attacks, following a nationwide
address announcing a war on terrorism, Bush scored the highest ever rating for
a president when his approval reached 90 per cent. See ‘Attack on America: Review
of Public Opinion’, Gallup News Service, September 17, 2001; David W. Moore,
‘Bush Job Approval Reflects Record “Rally” Effect’, Gallup News Service, September
18, 2001; and Moore, ‘Bush Job Approval Highest in Gallup History’, Gallup News
Service, September 24, 2001.
3. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence, ed. J. P. Mayer
(New York: Harper Perennial, 1988); Jack P. Greene, The Intellectual Construction of
America: Exceptionalism and Identity from 1492 to 1800 (Chapel Hill, NC: University
of North Carolina Press, 1993).
4. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism, revised edn (London: Verso, 1991).
5. Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and US Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1987) 14–15.
6. Daniel Bell, ‘The End of American Exceptionalism’, The Public Interest (Fall 1975),
reprinted in Bell, The Winding Passage: Essays and Sociological Journeys 1960–1980
(New York: Basic Books, 1980) 249, 270–1.
7. Bell, ‘ “American Exceptionalism” Revisited: The Role of Civil Society’, The Public
Interest, no. 95 (Spring 1989) 38–56.
8. Byron E. Shafer, ed., Is America Different? A New Look at American Exceptionalism
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991); emphasis in the original.
9. See, for example, Byron E. Shafer, ‘ “Exceptionalism” in American Politics?’ PS:
Political Science & Politics, vol. 22, no. 5 (September 1989) 588–94; Kim Voss, The
Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the
Nineteenth Century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993); Rick Halpern and
Jonathan Morris, eds, American Exceptionalism? US Working-Class Formation in an
International Context (Basingstoke: Macmillan – now Palgrave Macmillan, 1997);
Richard Rose, ‘How Exceptional is the American Political Economy?’ Political Science
Quarterly, vol. 104, no. 1 (Spring 1989) 91–115; Edward A. Tiryakian, ‘American
Religious Exceptionalism: A Reconsideration’, Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science, vol. 527 (May 1993) 40–54; Sven H. Steinmo, ‘American
Exceptionalism Reconsidered: Culture or Institutions?’ in Lawrence C. Dodd and
Calvin Jillson, eds, The Dynamics of American Politics: Approaches and Interpretations
(Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1994) 106–31; Andrei S. Markovits and Steven L.

194
 Notes 195

Hellerman, Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 2001).
10. Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (New York:
W. W. Norton, 1996).
11. Bell, ‘ “American Exceptionalism” Revisited’, 41; emphasis in the original.
12. Joseph Lepgold and Timothy McKeown, ‘Is American Foreign Policy Exceptional?
An Empirical Analysis’, Political Science Quarterly, vol. 110, no. 3 (Fall 1995).
13. Lepgold and McKeown, ‘Is American Foreign Policy Exceptional?’ 380–4.
14. Michael Kammen, ‘The Problem of American Exceptionalism: A Reconsideration’,
American Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 1 (March 1993) 11.
15. Hunt, Ideology, ch. 1–2.
16. Roger S. Whitcomb, The American Approach to Foreign Affairs: An Uncertain
Tradition (Westport, CT and London: Praeger, 1998) esp. ch. 1–2.
17. Ibid., 18–24.
18. H. W. Brands, What America Owes the World: The Struggle for the Soul of Foreign
Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); see Preface for quotations.
19. John Fousek, To Lead the Free World: American Nationalism and the Cultural Roots
of the Cold War (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000) 2–7.
20. Siobhán McEvoy-Levy, American Exceptionalism and US Foreign Policy: Public
Diplomacy at the End of the Cold War (Basingstoke: Palgrave – now Palgrave
Macmillan, 2001) 64–5, 143.
21. Hunt, Ideology, p. 16.
22. Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right
(New York: Hill & Wang, 1995) xiv.
23. Hunt, Ideology; McEvoy-Levy, American Exceptionalism; John Dumbrell, The
Making of US Foreign Policy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990).
24. David Ryan, US Foreign Policy in World History (London: Routledge, 2000) 15.
25. Hans Kohn, American Nationalism: An Interpretive Essay (New York: Macmillan,
1957) 8–9.
26. Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge,
MA: Belknap Press, 1981) 13–30.
27. Abraham Lincoln, ‘Speech at Chicago, Illinois. July 10, 1858’, The Collected Works
of Abraham Lincoln, Volume II, 1848–1858, ed. Roy P. Basler (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1953) 499–500.
28. Huntington, American Politics; Seymour Martin Lipset, ‘American Exceptionalism
Reaffirmed’ in Shafer, ed., Is America Different? 7.
29. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983) 10–11.
30. Robert N. Bellah, ‘Civil Religion in America’, Daedalus, vol. 96, no. 1 (Winter
1967) 1–21.
31. Hobsbawm and Ranger, Invention of Tradition, 9.
32. Joyce Appleby, Lynn V. Hunt and Margaret C. Jacob, Telling the Truth About History
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1994) 92.
33. Anthony D. Smith, Myths and Memories of the Nation (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999) 13.
34. Ryan, US Foreign Policy, 10.
35. Whitcomb, American Approach, 52.
36. Fousek, Lead the Free World, 5.
37. As noted above, H. W. Brands uses the terms ‘exemplarist’ and ‘vindicationist’ to
describe the two main strands of exceptionalist belief; see Brands, What America
196 Notes

Owes the World. Similarly, Michael Hunt identifies two persistent ‘visions’ of
American national greatness: ‘the dominant vision equating the cause of liberty
with the active pursuit of national greatness in world affairs and the dissenting
one favoring a foreign policy of restraint as essential to perfecting liberty at home.’
See Hunt, Ideology, 43. See also Trevor B. McCrisken, ‘Exceptionalism’ in Alexander
DeConde, Richard Dean Burns, and Fredrik Logevall, eds, Encyclopedia of American
Foreign Policy, 2nd edn (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001) vol. 2, 63–80.
38. See Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, 6–10.
39. John Winthrop, ‘A Modell of Christian Charity’, Winthrop Papers, vol. II,
1623–1630 (Massachusetts Historical Society, 1931) 294–5.
40. George Washington, ‘First Inaugural Address in the City of New York, April 30,
1789’, Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States from George
Washington 1789 to George Bush 1989 (Washington, DC: United States
Government Printing Office, 1989) 2.
41. See Robert Booth Fowler and Allen D. Hertzke, Religion and Politics in America:
Faith, Culture, and Strategic Choices (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995) esp. ch. 1,
2 and 12.
42. Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, 7–8.
43. Thomas Paine, Common Sense, ed. Isaac Kramnick (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1987) 91.
44. J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer and Sketches of
Eighteenth-Century America, ed. Albert E. Stone (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986) 70.
45. See Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948) ch. 1.
46. George Washington, ‘Farewell Address, United States, September 17, 1796’,
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1902, ed., James
D. Richardson (Washington, DC: Bureau of National Literature and Art, 1907) vol.
I, 222.
47. Thomas Jefferson, ‘First Inaugural Address at Washington, D.C., March 4, 1801’,
Inaugural Addresses, 15.
48. John Quincy Adams, ‘Mr. Adams’ Oration’, Niles’ Weekly Register (Baltimore)
New series no. 21, vol. VIII: whole no. 515 (July 21, 1821) 331–2.
49. See Serge Ricard, ‘The Exceptionalist Syndrome in US Continental and Overseas
Expansionism’, in David K. Adams and Cornelis A. van Minnen, eds, Reflections
on American Exceptionalism (Keele: Keele University Press, 1994) 73.
50. Washington, ‘Farewell Address’, 222–3.
51. Jefferson, ‘First Inaugural’, 15.
52. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Cycles of American History (Boston MA: Houghton
Mifflin, 1986) 16.
53. Albert K. Weinberg, Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in
American History (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1935; Chicago:
Quadrangle, 1963) 8, 62.
54. Richard Hofstadter, ‘Manifest Destiny and the Philippines’, in America in Crisis:
Fourteen Crucial Episodes in American History, ed. Daniel Aaron (New York, Alfred
A. Knopf, 1952) 173–200.
55. Quoted in Robert L. Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists,
1898–1900 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985) 81.
56. Woodrow Wilson, ‘A Commencement Address, June 5, 1914’, The Papers of
Woodrow Wilson, ed. Arthur S. Link (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1989) vol. 30, 146–8.
 Notes 197

57. Quoted in Walter LaFeber, The American Age: US Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad,
1750 to the Present, 2nd edn (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994) 281.
58. Franklin D. Roosevelt, ‘Address to the Congress on the State of the Union,
January 6, 1942’, The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1942
Volume: Humanity on the Defensive (New York: Harper, 1950) 35.
59. See Fousek, To Lead the Free World, 41–4.
60. For a fuller account of how the two main strands of exceptionalism developed
throughout US history see McCrisken, ‘Exceptionalism’, 67–72.
61. See David W. Moore, ‘Public Trust in Federal Government Remains High’, Gallup
News Service, January 8, 1999.
62. See Frank Newport, ‘President-Elect Bush Faces Politically Divided Nation, But
Relatively Few Americans Are Angry or Bitter Over Election Outcome’, Gallup
News Service, December 18, 2000.
63. See Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From
the 1960s to the 1990s, 2nd edn (New York & London: Routledge, 1994); Arthur
M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society,
revised and enlarged edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998); Adalberto Aguirre,
Jr. and Jonathan H. Turner, American Ethnicity: The Dynamics and Consequences of
Discrimination, 2nd edn (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998).
64. Winthrop, ‘Modell of Christian Charity’, 294–5.
65. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 237, 256, 374, 569.
66. Ryan, US Foreign Policy, 9. Ryan also points out that ‘Some experiences (slavery
and slaughter) that were incompatible with the righteous image of the nation
were basically written out of the sites of collective memory’ (10–11).
67. Mort Rosenblaum, Mission to Civilize: The French Way (San Diego, CA: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1986).
68. Kathryn Tidrick, Empire and the English Character (London: IB Tauris, 1990).
69. Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, revised edn (London: Odhams Books, 1964).
70. Quoted in Richard J. Ellis, ed., Speaking to the People: The Rhetorical Presidency in
Historical Perspective (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998) 1.
71. Ryan, US Foreign Policy, 7.
72. Hunt, Ideology, 15.

2 The End of American Exceptionalism? The Cold War

and Vietnam
1. Henry R. Luce, ‘The American Century’, Life, vol. 10, no. 7 (February 17, 1941)
61–5.
2. George H. Gallup, ‘Foreign Affairs, October 21, 1945’, The Gallup Poll: Public
Opinion 1935–1971, Volume One, 1935–1948 (New York: Random House, 1972)
534.
3. Dwight D. Eisenhower, ‘First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953’, Inaugural
Addresses, 260.
4. Fousek, Lead the Free World.
5. Stephanson, Manifest Destiny, 124.
6. Fousek, Lead the Free World, 45–6.
7. Harry S Truman, ‘Address of the President of the United States – Greece, Turkey,
and the Middle East (H. Doc. No. 171)’, Congressional Record, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.
(March 12, 1947) vol. 93, part 2, 1981.
198 Notes

8. X [George Kennan], ‘The Sources of Soviet Conduct’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 25,
no. 4 (July 1947) 582.
9. Hunt, Ideology, 158.
10. ‘NSC 68, April 7, 1950,’ Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, vol. 1
(Washington, DC: USGPO, 1977) 235–92.
11. Fousek, Lead the Free World, 130.
12. See Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2000).
13. Fousek, Lead the Free World, 148.
14. Michael E. Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and ‘Nation-
Building’ in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press,
2000) 67, 101.
15. See Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, Volume II: The Roaring of the
Cataract, 1947–1950 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).
16. Harry S Truman, ‘Special Message to the Congress Reporting on the Situation in
Korea, July 19, 1950’, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S.
Truman, 1950 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1965) 531–6. Hereafter, Public Papers
with date.
17. Kennedy, ‘Inaugural Address,’ 1–3.
18. John F. Kennedy, ‘Radio and Television Report to the American People on the
Soviet Arms Build-up in Cuba, October 22, 1962’, Public Papers, 1962, 809.
19. Lyndon B. Johnson, ‘Address at Johns Hopkins University: “Peace Without
Conquest.” April 7, 1965’, Public Papers, 1965, book 1, 394–8.
20. William S. Turley, The Second Indochina War: A Short Political and Military History,
1954–1975 (New York: Mentor, 1987) 89, 201–3.
21. See, for example, Paul M. Kattenburg, The Vietnam Trauma in American Foreign
Policy, 1945–75 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1982).
22. Alexander Kendrick, The Wound Within: America in the Vietnam Years, 1945–1974
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1974) 4.
23. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Viking Press, 1983) 9.
24. Bell, ‘End of American Exceptionalism’.
25. Quoted in Fred Halstead, Out Now! A Participant’s Account of the American
Movement Against the Vietnam War (New York: Monad Press, 1978) 41–2.
26. David W. Levy, The Debate Over Vietnam, 2nd edn (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1995) 46.
27. For a full debate over the legal aspects of US intervention in Vietnam see Richard
A. Falk, ed., The Vietnam War and International Law, 4 vols (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1968–76).
28. US Congress, Senate, S. J. Res. 189, Congressional Record, 88th Cong., 2nd Sess.
(August 5, 1964) vol. 110, part 14, 18133.
29. Loren Baritz, Backfire: A History of How American Culture Led Us into Vietnam and
Made Us Fight the Way We Did (New York: Ballantine, 1985) 128–9; George C.
Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975, 2nd
edn (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986) 119–23; and Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining
Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Vintage Books, 1988) 379.
30. Quoted in LaFeber, American Age, 406.
31. The National Liberation Front was the communist-led political and military orga-
nization formed in 1959 to lead the insurgency in South Vietnam against the
Saigon government.
32. Anthony A. D’Amato, Harvey L. Gould and Larry D. Woods, ‘Bombardment of
Non-Military Targets’, in ‘War Crimes and Vietnam: The “Nuremburg Defense”
 Notes 199

and the Military Service Resister’, California Law Review, vol. 57 (November 1969)
reprinted in Falk, The Vietnam War and International Law, vol. 3, 433–43.
33. Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam, 1989) 265.
34. Bill Moyers, ‘What is Left of Conscience?’ Saturday Review, February 13, 1971,
reprinted in Steven Cohen, Vietnam: Anthology and Guide to a Television History
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983) 379.
35. See Telford Taylor, Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy (Chicago:
Quadrangle, 1970).
36. Quoted in J. Justin Gustainis, American Rhetoric and the Vietnam War (Westport,
CT: Praeger, 1993) 44.
37. Frances FitzGerald, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam
(New York: Atlantic-Little, 1972; Vintage Books, 1989) 455.
38. Quoted in Herring, America’s Longest War, 187.
39. John E. Mueller, War, Presidents, and Public Opinion (New York: John Wiley, 1973)
54–7.
40. Karnow, Vietnam, 546–7.
41. Johnson, ‘The President’s Address to the Nation Announcing Steps to Limit the
War in Vietnam and Reporting His Decision Not to Seek Reelection, March 31,
1968’, Public Papers, 1968, book I, 476.
42. Karnow, Vietnam, 559; Herring, America’s Longest War, 201–2.
43. Richard M. Nixon, ‘Address to the Nation on the War in Vietnam, November 3,
1969’, Public Papers, 1969, 902.
44. Quoted in Herring, America’s Longest War, 223.
45. Nixon, ‘Address to the Nation, November 3, 1969’, 903.
46. Leslie H. Gelb and Richard K. Betts, The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1979) 349–50.
47. Quoted in Sheehan, Bright Shining Lie, 739.
48. Herring, America’s Longest War, 225–55; Karnow, Vietnam, 604–69.
49. Herring, America’s Longest War, 255–6.
50. Ibid., 256.
51. Ibid.; Turley, Second Indochina War, 89.
52. Frank Snepp, Decent Interval: The American Debacle in Vietnam and the Fall of
Saigon (New York: Random House, 1977).
53. Nixon, ‘Address to the Nation, November 3, 1969’, 909.
54. Ibid.
55. J. William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power (New York: Vintage, 1966) 4–5, 20–1,
245–7, 254–6.
56. Robert E. Lane and Michael Lerner, ‘Why Hard Hats Hate Hairs’, Psychology Today
(November 1970) 45, quoted in Gustainis, American Rhetoric, 110.
57. Gitlin, The Sixties, 107.
58. Quoted in Kenneth J. Heineman, Campus Wars: The Peace Movement at American
State Universities in the Vietnam Era (New York: New York University Press, 1993) 89.
59. Ibid., 207.
60. Quoted in ‘M-Day’s Message to Nixon’, Time, vol. 94, no. 17 (October 24, 1969)
17.
61. Daniel Yankelovich, ‘A Crisis of Moral Legitimacy?’ Dissent (Fall 1974) 526–7,
530–2.
62. ‘The Tarnished Age’, New Republic, vol. 171, no. 17 (October 26, 1974) 3.
63. Quoted in Halstead, Out Now! 360.
64. See Louis Fisher, Presidential War Power (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas,
1995) ch. 6–9.
200 Notes

65. See, for example, Ole R. Holsti and James N. Rosenau, American Leadership in
World Affairs: Vietnam and the Breakdown of Consensus (Boston: Allen & Unwin,
1984); Richard A. Melanson, American Foreign Policy Since the Vietnam War:
The Search for Consensus from Nixon to Clinton, 2nd edn (Armonk, NY: M. E.
Sharpe, 1996) ch. 1.
66. See, for example, Richard Nixon, No More Vietnams (London: W. H. Allen, 1986).

3 Gerald Ford and the Time for Healing

1. Gerald R. Ford, ‘Remarks on Taking the Oath of Office. August 9, 1974’, Public
Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Gerald R. Ford 1974, 1. Hereafter Public
Papers followed by the year.
2. Gerald R. Ford, A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford (New York:
Harper & Row, 1979) 124, 144.
3. Robert T. Hartmann, Palace Politics: An Inside Account of the Ford Years (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1980) 165.
4. Ford’s approval rating was 71 per cent with 26 per cent of those polled holding
‘no opinion’. See George H. Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1972–1977,
Vol. One, 1972–75 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc, 1978) 347.
5. Gallup, Gallup Poll, 1972–75, 347, 364.
6. Ford, ‘Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress Reporting on the State of the
Union, January 15, 1975’, Public Papers, 1975, 44.
7. Ford, ‘Address to a Joint Session of the Congress. August 12, 1974’, Public Papers,
1974, 12.
8. Draft Presidential Address (NSC Portion), August 12, 1974, folder 8/12/74 Joint
Session of Congress (1), box 171, Robert T. Hartmann Papers, Gerald R. Ford
Library (hereafter GRFL).
9. Ford, ‘Address at the Continental Congress of the Daughters of the American
Revolution, April 15, 1975’, Public Papers, 1975, 482.
10. Ford, ‘State of the Union, 1975’, 45–6.
11. Minutes, National Security Council Meeting, April 9, 1975 [declassified], box A6,
folder NSC Meeting April 9, 1975 Minutes, Henry Kissinger & Brent Scowcroft
Files 1974–77 Temporary Parallel File, GRFL; Ford, ‘Special Message to the
Congress Requesting Supplemental Assistance for the Republic of Vietnam and
Cambodia, January 28, 1975’, Public Papers, 1975, 119–23; Ford, ‘Letter to the
Speaker of the House Urging Action on Supplemental Military and Economic
Assistance for Cambodia, February 25, 1975’, Public Papers, 1975, 279–80; Ford,
‘Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress Reporting on United States Foreign
Policy, April 10, 1975’, Public Papers, 1975, 459–73.
12. Greene, Gerald R. Ford, 117–19.
13. Ibid., 134–8; Memo, Bob Wolthuis to Jack Marsh, ‘Congressional Reaction to Viet
Nam and Cambodia’, April 9, 1975, folder National Security: Wars – Cambodia
(1), box 33, Presidential Handwriting File, GRFL.
14. Ford, ‘Address at a Tulane University Convocation, April 23, 1975’, Public Papers,
1975, 568–73.
15. Message, Ambassador Graham Martin to Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, April 19, 1975
[declassified], folder Backchannel Series, box A1, Henry Kissinger & Brent
Scowcroft Files 1974–1977 Temporary Parallel File, GRFL.
16. Quoted in ‘After the Fall: Reactions and Rationales,’ Time, May 12, 1975, 23.
17. Roy Rowan and William Stewart, ‘The Last Grim Goodbye’, Time, May 12,
1975, 6–7.
 Notes 201

18. Summary, ‘Worldwide Treatment of Current Issues: Indochina and US Policy

Reassessment,’ no. 28, April 7, 1975, box 33, folder National Security Wars –
Vietnam (1), Presidential Handwriting File, GRFL.
19. Memo, Ron Nessen to the President, ‘UPI Story on Public Opposition to
Vietnamese Refugees’, May 3, 1975, folder National Security: Refugees – Vietnam,
box 32, Presidential Handwriting File, GRFL.
20. ‘A Cool and Wary Reception’, Time, May 12, 1975, 24.
21. Ford, Time to Heal, 257.
22. Ford, ‘Statement on House Action Rejecting Vietnam Humanitarian Assistance
and Evacuation Legislation, May 1, 1975’, Public Papers, 1975, 619.
23. Memo, Roland L. Elliott to the President, ‘Support from Organizations on Refugee
Resettlement’, May 12, 1975, folder National Security: Refugees – Vietnam,
box 32, GRFL.
24. Talking Points, Meeting with Republican Congressional Leaders, May 6, 1975, folder
Republican Congressional Leaders 5/6/75, box 44, James M. Cannon Files, GRFL.
25. ‘A Warmer Welcome for the Homeless’, Time, May 19, 1975, 10.
26. Folder National Security: Refugees – Vietnam, box 32, Presidential Handwriting
File, GRFL.
27. Memo, Jack Marsh to Donald Rumsfeld, ‘Statement of Senator Mike Mansfield’,
April 7, 1975, folder 4/10/75 Foreign Policy Address (4), box 174, Robert T.
Hartmann Papers, GRFL.
28. Ford, ‘The President’s News Conference of May 6, 1975’, Public Papers, 1975, 641.
29. Ford, ‘The President’s News Conference of June 9, 1975’, Public Papers, 1975, 791.
30. Chronology of Events of the Mayaguez Incident, folder Mayaguez Situation –
GAO Report, box 25, Philip Buchen Files, GRFL; Greene, Gerald R. Ford, 143–9.
31. Memo, Jerry Jones to Dick Cheney, May 27, 1975, folder National Security:
Wars – Cambodia (2), box 33, Presidential Handwriting File, GRFL.
32. Newspaper clipping, Detroit Free Press, May 15, 1975, folder National Security:
Wars – Cambodia (2), box 33, Presidential Handwriting File, GRFL.
33. Memo, ‘Latest Reaction to Mayaguez Incident’, May 16, 1975, folder ‘Mayaguez’
S.S., box 2056, White House Central Files – Name File, GRFL; Memo, Roland L.
Elliott to The President, May 16, 1975, folder National Security: Wars – Cambodia
(1), box 33, Presidential Handwriting File, GRFL.
34. Telegram, Mr & Mrs L. Baltz, Naugatuck, Conn. and Mr & Mrs J. Howe, Granby,
Conn. to President Gerald Ford, May 15, 1975, folder National Security: Wars –
Cambodia (1), box 33, Presidential Handwriting File, GRFL.
35. Memo, Max Friedersdorf to The President, May 16, 1975, folder ‘Mayaguez’
Situation – General (2), box 25, Philip Buchen Files, GRFL.
36. Memo, US Congressman Carroll Hubbard to News Media, May 15, 1975, folder
‘Mayaguez’ – General, box 14, Ron Nessen Papers, GRFL.
37. Gallup, Gallup Poll, 1972–75, 519.
38. Gerald R. Ford, ‘Letter to the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore
of the Senate Reporting on United States Actions in the Recovery of the SS
Mayaguez, May 15, 1975’, Public Papers, 1975, 669–70.
39. Minutes, National Security Council Meeting, Monday May 12, 1975, 12:05 pm to
12:50 pm [declassified], folder NSC Meeting May 12, 1975 Minutes, box A6,
Henry Kissinger & Brent Scowcroft Files 1974–77 Temporary Parallel File, GRFL.
40. Ibid.
41. Minutes, National Security Council Meeting, Tuesday May 13, 1975, 10:40 pm to
12:25 am [declassified], folder NSC Meeting May 13, 1975 Minutes, box A6,
Henry Kissinger & Brent Scowcroft Files 1974–77 Temporary Parallel File, GRFL.
202 Notes

42. Handwritten Notes, Untitled, Not Dated, folder Mayaguez Situation – General (1),
box 25, Philip Buchen Files, GRFL; emphasis in the original.
43. Minutes, National Security Council Meeting, Tuesday May 13, 1975, 10:22 am to
11:17 am, [declassified], folder NSC Meeting May 13, 1975 Minutes, box A6,
Henry Kissinger & Brent Scowcroft Files 1974–77 Temporary Parallel File, GRFL.
44. NSC Meeting, May 13, 1975, 10:40 pm to 12:25 am.
45. Transcript, News Conference at the White House with Ron Nessen, May 19, 1975,
folder May 19, 1975 (No. 223), box 9, Ron Nessen Files, GRFL.
46. Memo, Friedersdorf to The President, May 16, 1975.
47. Minutes, NSC, May 12, 1975.
48. Minutes, NSC, May 14, 1975.
49. Ford, Time to Heal, 284.
50. New York Times, May 19, 1975, 29, quoted in Fisher, Presidential War Power, 138.
51. Gallup, Gallup Poll, 1972–75, 488.
52. Ford, ‘Interview with European Journalists, May 23, 1975’, Public Papers, 1975,
706.
53. Ford, Time to Heal, 284.
54. See, for example, Richard A. Melanson, American Foreign Policy Since the Vietnam
War: The Search for Consensus from Nixon to Clinton, 2nd edn (Armonk, NY:
M. E. Sharpe, 1996) which treats Ford’s foreign policy perfunctorily in a chapter
on the Nixon administration.
55. Hugh Sidey, ‘Closing Out an Interim Chapter’, Time, November 15, 1976, 28.
56. The speeches were published in a small volume entitled The American Adventure:
The Bicentennial Messages of Gerald R. Ford, July 1976.
57. Newsweek, July 12, 1976, 3.
58. ‘The Big 200th Bash’, Time, 5 July 1976, 8.
59. Ford, Time to Heal, 393.
60. Greene, Gerald R. Ford, on Sinai Accords: 127–9, 153–5; on Soviet policy: 120–6
61. Ibid., ch. 7.

4 Jimmy Carter – Morality and the Crisis of Confidence

1. Jimmy Carter, ‘Inaugural Address of President Jimmy Carter, January 20, 1977’
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1977, 1. Hereafter
Public Papers followed by year.
2. Carter, ‘Nomination Acceptance Speech at the 1976 Democratic National
Convention’, Why Not The Best? Presidential edition (Eastbourne: Kingsway,
1977) 185.
3. Carter, Why Not The Best? 11.
4. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser,
1977–1981 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1983) 81.
5. Carter, ‘University of Notre Dame: Address at Commencement Exercises at the
University, May 22, 1977’, Public Papers, 1977, 957.
6. Carter, ‘Charleston, South Carolina: Remarks at the 31st Annual Meeting of the
Southern Legislative Conference, July 21, 1977’, Public Papers, 1977, 1312.
7. Carter, ‘Inaugural Address’, 1–4.
8. Gaddis Smith, Morality, Reason, and Power: American Diplomacy in the Carter Years
(New York: Hill & Wang, 1986) 35–40; Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 3–15, 36.
9. Smith, Morality, Reason, and Power, 40–1; Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices: Critical Years
in America’s Foreign Policy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983) 26–9.
 Notes 203

10. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 42–3.

11. Memo, Zbigniew Brzezinski to President Carter, April 18, 1977, folder Four Year
Goals (4/77), box 23, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, Jimmy Carter Library (here-
after JCL).
12. Carter, ‘Notre Dame Address’, 955.
13. Ibid., 956.
14. Memo, Jerry Doolittle to Jim Fallows, forwarded to President Carter, May 20,
1977, folder 5/22/77 Notre Dame Speech (4), box 6, Staff Offices Speechwriters –
Chron File, JCL.
15. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 124.
16. Vance, Hard Choices, 29.
17. Carter, ‘Notre Dame Address’, 961.
18. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 53; Carter, ‘Notre Dame Address’, 957.
19. Carter, ‘Notre Dame Address’, 962.
20. Carter, ‘United States Foreign Policy: Remarks to the People of Other Nations on
Assuming Office, January 20, 1977’, Public Papers, 1977, 4.
21. Carter, ‘Inaugural Address’, 2.
22. Carter, ‘SLC Remarks’, 1311.
23. Presidential Directive/NSC-18: US National Strategy, August 24, 1977 [partially
declassified], folder Presidential Directives, Vertical File, JCL.
24. Vance, Hard Choices, 23–7.
25. Carter, ‘Notre Dame Address’, 957.
26. Carter, ‘Inaugural Address’, 3.
27. Carter, ‘Notre Dame Address’, 957.
28. Presidential Directive/NSC-30: Human Rights, February 17, 1978 [declassified],
folder Presidential Directives, box Vertical File, JCL. Hereafter PD-30.
29. Carter, ‘European Newspaper Journalists Question-and-Answer Session, April 25,
1977’, Public Papers, 1977, 782.
30. Carter, ‘Yazoo City, Mississippi: Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session at a
Public Meeting, July 21, 1977’, Public Papers, 1977, 1328.
31. Ibid., 1324.
32. Carter, ‘Interview with the President: Remarks and a Question-and-Answer
Session with a Group of Publishers, Editors, and Broadcasters, May 20, 1977’,
Public Papers, 1977, 947.
33. Presidential Review Memorandum/NSC-28: Human Rights, July 7, 1977 [declas-
sified], folder Presidential Review Memoranda (2), Vertical File, JCL. Hereafter
PRM 28.
34. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 124–7.
35. PD-30.
36. Ibid.
37. Vance, Hard Choices, 33.
38. Carter, ‘Notre Dame Address’, 958.
39. PRM 28, 12–13.
40. Ibid., 4.
41. Carter, ‘The President’s News Conference of December 15, 1977’, Public Papers,
1977, 2115.
42. PRM 28, 15.
43. Cited in Carter, Keeping Faith, 146.
44. Carter, ‘United Nations: Address Before the General Assembly, March 17, 1977’,
Public Papers, 1977, 449.
204 Notes

45. Carter, Keeping Faith, 149.

46. PRM 28, 7; emphasis in original.
47. Carter, ‘Notre Dame Address’, 958.
48. Carter, ‘Interview July 15, 1977’, 1275.
49. David P. Forsythe, Human Rights and US Foreign Policy: Congress Reconsidered
(Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1988) 61.
50. Ibid., 77.
51. Dumbrell, Carter, 193.
52. Jeane K. Kirkpatrick, ‘Dictatorships and Double Standards’, Commentary, no. 68
(November 1979) 34–45.
53. Joshua Muravchik, The Uncertain Crusade: Jimmy Carter and the Dilemmas of
Human Rights Policy (Lanham, MD: Hamilton Press, 1986) 215.
54. Dumbrell, Carter, 186–7.
55. Memo, Hamilton Jordan to President Carter, June 1977 [declassified], folder
Foreign Policy/Domestic Politics Memo, HJ Memo, 6/77, box 34, Chief of Staff
Hamilton Jordan’s Files, JCL.
56. Ibid.
57. Carter, Why Not The Best? 143–4.
58. Ibid., 135, 159.
59. Vance, Hard Choices, 33.
60. Interview with Hendrick Hertzberg (including Christopher Matthews, Achsah
Nesmith, Gordon Stewart), Miller Center Interviews, Carter Presidency Project,
vol. VIII, December 3–4, 1981, 20, JCL.
61. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 49.
62. Ibid., 9, 23, 48–9.
63. Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Madeleine Albright, Leslie Denend, and
William Odom, Miller Center Interviews, Carter Presidency Project, vol. XV,
February 18, 1982, 61, JCL.
64. Ibid.; Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 49.
65. Vance, Hard Choices, 29.
66. Carter, Keeping Faith, 143.
67. Privately administration officials referred to the 1903 treaty as one of the ‘sins of
our colonialist past’ but were careful not to express this opinion publicly as it was
realized that taking ‘an apologetic and self-lacerating attitude’ would scupper all
chances for ratification. See Letter, Jim Fallows to Harlan J. Strauss, September 19,
1977, folder Panama Canal Treaty [9/16/77-11/4/77] [CF, O/A 616], box 8,
Speechwriters – Fallows files, JCL.
68. Carter, Keeping Faith, 156.
69. Memo, Jerry Doolittle to Joe Aragon and Landon Butler, August 22, 1977, folder
Panama Canal Treaty (4/14/77-8/30/77) [CF, O/A 616], box 8, Staff Offices
Speechwriters – Fallows, JCL.
70. Carter, Keeping Faith, 152–85.
71. Quoted in Garry Wills, Reagan’s America (New York: Penguin, 1988) 390.
72. See Memo, Hodding Carter III to Joseph Aragon, Working Paper on
Panama/Public and Press Outreach Strategy, June 17, 1977, folder Panama Canal
Treaty 6-7/77, box 36, Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan files, JCL; Survey Report,
An Analysis of Public Attitudes Toward the Panama Canal Treaties, Cambridge
Survey Research for the Democratic National Committee, October 1977, folder
Panama Canal Treaty, 10, 11, 12/77 (1), box 36, Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan
files, JCL.
 Notes 205

73. See Summary, Poll Results on the Panama Canal Treaties, folder Panama Canal
Treaties 1977 [CF, O/A 413] (3), box 50, Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan files, JCL.
74. Carter, Keeping Faith, 184; Vance, Hard Choices, 156–7.
75. Carter, Keeping Faith, 184.
76. Carter, ‘Panama Canal Treaties: Remarks at the Signing Ceremony at the Pan
American Union Building, September 7, 1977’, Public Papers, 1977, book II, 1543.
77. See Dumbrell, Carter, 150–61; Smith, Morality, Reason, and Power, Ch. 5; Gaddis
Smith, The Last Years of the Monroe Doctrine, 1945–1993 (New York: Hill & Wang,
1994) ch. 7.
78. See Carter, Keeping Faith, 186–211; Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 196–233; Vance,
Hard Choices, 75–83, 113–19.
79. Quoted in Smith, Morality, Reason, and Power, 94.
80. Quoted ibid., 97.
81. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 409–13.
82. Quoted in Elizabeth Becker, When the War was Over: The Voices of Cambodia’s
Revolution and its People (New York: Touchstone, 1987) 440. See also Christopher
Brady, United States Foreign Policy Towards Cambodia, 1977–92 (Basingstoke:
Macmillan – now Palgrave Macmillan, 1999) ch. 1.
83. See Carter, Keeping Faith, 267–429; Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 83–122, 234–88;
Vance, Hard Choices, 159–255.
84. Carter, Keeping Faith, 277.
85. Smith, Morality, Reason and Power, 9, 157–68.
86. Memo, Patrick H. Caddell to the President, Journalists Meeting, July 12, 1979,
folder 7/15/79 Address to the Nation – Energy/Crisis of Confidence (2), box 50,
Speechwriters Chron File, JCL. This memorandum contains a summary of
Caddell’s earlier report.
87. Memo, Caddell to the President, July 12, 1979.
88. Memo, Anthony Lake to James Fallows, President’s Annapolis commencement
speech, Attachment I to Memo, Jim Fallows to the President, Naval Academy
Speech, May 23, 1978, folder 6/7/78 Naval Academy Speech (1), box 26,
Speechwriters Chron File, JCL; emphasis added.
89. Memo, Jerry Doolittle and Rick Hertzberg to the President, Suggested Outline for the
Annapolis Speech, June 2, 1978, folder 6/7/78 Naval Academy Speech (2), box 27,
Speechwriters Chron File, JCL; Carter, ‘United States Naval Academy: Address at
the Commencement Exercises, June 7, 1978’, Public Papers, 1978, 1052–7.
90. See Carter, Keeping Faith, 91–124.
91. Memo, Achsah Nesmith, Walter Shapiro and Gordon Stewart to Jerry Rafshoon
and Rick Hertzberg, Energy Speech, June 29, 1979, folder 7/15/79 Proposed
Remarks on Energy (2), box 50, Speechwriters Chron File, JCL; underline in the
original.
92. Kenneth E. Morris, Jimmy Carter: American Moralist (Athens, GA and London:
University of Georgia Press, 1996) 1.
93. Carter, ‘Energy and National Goals: Address to the Nation, July 15, 1979’, Public
Papers, 1979, book II, 1236–8.
94. Memo, Jerry Rafshoon to the President, July 10, 1979, folder 7/15/79 Address,
box 50, Speechwriters Files, JCL.
95. Carter, ‘Energy and National Goals’, 1238–41.
96. ‘Carter was Speechless’, Time, July 16, 1979, 8–11.
97. ‘Carter at the Crossroads’, Time, July 23, 1979, 29.
98. Morris, Carter, 6–7.
206 Notes

99. Quoted ibid., 261–2.

100. ‘Ennui the People’, New Republic, August 4 and 11, 1979, 5–10.
101. Ken Bode, ‘It’s Over for Jimmy’, New Republic, August 4 and 11, 1979, 15–16.
102. Morris, Carter, 6.
103. ‘Carter at the Crossroads’, 24.
104. Quoted in Bode, ‘It’s Over for Jimmy’, 15.
105. See Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 401 ff.
106. Carter, ‘Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Address Before the World Affairs Council of
Philadelphia, May 9, 1980’, Public Papers, 1980–81, 868.
107. Carter, ‘Berlin, Federal Republic of Germany: Question-and-Answer Session at
a Town Meeting, July 15, 1978’, Public Papers, 1978, 1303.
108. Melanson, American Foreign Policy, 111.
109. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 183–4.
110. Ibid., 44.
111. Carter, ‘United States Defense Policy: Remarks to Members of the Business
Council, December 12, 1979’, Public Papers, 1979, 2233.
112. ‘US Attitudes: Unity and Strength’, Time, January 7, 1980, 18.
113. ‘Flip-Flops and Zigzags’, Time, March 17, 1980, 14–15.
114. For accounts of the decision making leading to the rescue mission and its imple-
mentation see Carter, Keeping Faith, 501–22; Brzezinski, Power and Principle,
477–500; Vance, Hard Choices, 408–13.
115. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 480, 496.
116. Carter, Keeping Faith, 507.
117. Ibid., 461.
118. Carter, ‘Rescue Attempt for American Hostages in Iran: Address to the Nation,
April 25, 1980’, Public Papers, 1980–81, 772–3.
119. Carter, ‘Rescue Attempt for American Hostages in Iran: Letter to the Speaker of
the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate Reporting on the
Operation, April 26, 1980’, Public Papers, 1980–81, 777–9.
120. Carter, ‘Rescue Attempt Address to the Nation’, 772.
121. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 494–5.
122. Carter, Keeping Faith, 507.
123. Transcript, ‘ABC News Issues and Answers, Sunday April 27, 1980’, folder
Hostages in US Embassy in Iran, 1980, No. 2 [CF, O/A 749] (2), box 62, Staff
Offices Press Powell, JCL.
124. Memo, White House Comments Office Totals, April 25, 1980, folder Hostages in
US Embassy in Iran, 1980, No. 2 [CF, O/A 749] (3), box 62, Staff Offices Press
Powell, JCL.
125. George H. Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1980 (Wilmington, DE:
Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1981) 102.
126. See Memo, Frank Moore to the President, April 25, 1980, folder 4/26/80, box
1833, Presidential Handwriting File, JCL.
127. ‘Debacle in the Desert’, Time, May 5, 1980, 12.
128. Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1980, 158.
129. Minutes, Cabinet Meeting, January 7, 1980, folder Cabinet Minutes 1980,
box 18, Plains File, JCL; Carter, ‘Situation in Iran and Soviet Invasion of
Afghanistan: Remarks at a White House Briefing for Members of Congress,
January 8, 1980’, Public Papers, 1980–81, 40.
130. Robert O. Freedman, Moscow and the Middle East: Soviet Policy since the Invasion
of Afghanistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) 71–4; M. Hassan
 Notes 207

Kakar, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979–1982
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995) 46–50; Sarah E. Mendelson,
Changing Course: Ideas, Politics, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998) 41–64.
131. Carter, ‘The State of the Union: Address Delivered Before a Joint Session of the
Congress, January 23, 1980’, Public Papers, 1980–81, 197.
132. See Carter, ‘Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan: Address to the Nation, January 4,
1980’, Public Papers, 1980–81, book I, 21–4; Carter, Keeping Faith, 471–3, 479–83,
486–9; Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 426–69; Vance, Hard Choices, 384–97.
133. Carter, Keeping Faith, 568. Gary Sick has controversially argued that a secret deal
was struck between the Iranians and the Reagan campaign to delay the hostages’
release until after the presidential election. See Gary Sick, October Surprise:
America’s Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan (New York: Times
Books, 1991).
134. Carter, ‘Aliquippa, Pennsylvania: Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session
at a Town Meeting, September 23, 1978’, Public Papers, 1978, 1614–15.
135. Ibid., 1615.
136. John Dumbrell, American Foreign Policy: Carter to Clinton (Basingstoke:
Macmillan – now Palgrave Macmillan, 1997) 52.
137. Morris, Carter, 287.

5 Ronald Reagan – ‘America is Back’

1. Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Touchstone,
1991) 793.
2. Ronald Reagan, ‘Remarks at a Republican Rally, Costa Mesa, California,
November 3, 1986’, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald
Reagan, 1986. Hereafter Public Papers followed by year.
3. Wills, Reagan’s America, 127–32, 137–48.
4. Cannon, Reagan, 486–90; Wills, Reagan’s America, 199–201.
5. Reagan, ‘Remarks at the First Annual Commemoration of the Days of
Remembrance of Victims of the Holocaust, April 30, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981,
396–7.
6. Reagan, ‘Remarks at a Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the
Voice of America, February 24, 1982’, Public Papers, 1982, 217.
7. See Wills, Reagan’s America, 374–84.
8. Ibid., 383–4.
9. Quoted in Cannon, Reagan, 109n; Wills, Reagan’s America, 456.
10. Wills, Reagan’s America, 236.
11. Reagan, ‘Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981, 1–4.
12. Reagan, ‘Remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference Dinner,
March 20, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981, 278.
13. Carter, ‘Energy and National Goals’, 1241.
14. Reagan, ‘Address at Commencement Exercises at the United States Military
Academy, May 27, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981, 464.
15. Reagan, ‘Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress Reporting on the State
of the Union, January 26, 1982’, Public Papers, 1982, 72–9.
16. Reagan, ‘Remarks at a Mount Vernon, Virginia, Ceremony Commemorating the
250th Anniversary of the Birth of George Washington, February 22, 1982’, Public
Papers, 1982, 200.
208 Notes

17. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation on the Economy, February 5, 1981’, Public Papers,
1981, 83.
18. Talking Points, Breakfast with Presidential Appointees, March 30, 1981, folder
#043369, Office of the President: Presidential Briefing Papers (1981–1984) files,
Ronald Reagan Library (hereafter RRL).
19. See Cannon, Reagan, esp. ch. 6; Wills, Reagan’s America, esp. ch. 30 and 36.
20. Reagan, ‘Remarks at the Welcoming Ceremony for the Freed American Hostages,
January 27, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981, 43.
21. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation on Strategic Arms Reduction and Nuclear
Deterrence, November 22, 1982’, Public Papers, 1982, 1510.
22. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation on the Program for Economic Recovery,
September 24, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981, 836; Reagan, ‘Remarks at the
Bicentennial Observance of the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, October 19, 1981’,
Public Papers, 1981, 970.
23. Reagan, ‘Remarks at a Luncheon of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 15, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981, 938.
24. Reagan, ‘Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National League of Cities in
Los Angeles, California, November 29, 1982’, Public Papers, 1982, 1521.
25. Reagan, ‘Inaugural Address, 1981’, 3.
26. Reagan, ‘Voice of America Remarks’, 217.
27. Memo, Henry R. Nau to Allen Lenz, December 3, 1981, folder SP 230-82 044142
[2 of 2], box SP 230 Begin – SP 230-82 057187, White House Office of Records
Management (WHORM) Subject File SP (Speeches), RRL.
28. Reagan, ‘Remarks in New York City Before the United Nations General Assembly
Special Session Devoted to Disarmament, June 17, 1982’, Public Papers, 1982, 785.
29. Handwritten Letter, President Reagan to President Brezhnev, April 24, 1981
[declassified], folder Declassified Head of State (USSR), RRL.
30. Reagan, ‘Remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference Dinner,
February 18, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 256.
31. Reagan, ‘Remarks at a Spirit of America Rally in Atlanta, Georgia, January 26,
1984’, Public Papers, 1984, 101.
32. Reagan, ‘Remarks at the Annual Washington Conference of the American Legion,
February 22, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 264–71.
33. Reagan, ‘The President’s News Conference, June 16, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981,
520–1.
34. See Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Caveat: Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy (London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984).
35. Indeed, immediately following the assassination attempt against Reagan on
March 30, 1981, a clearly flustered Haig famously misinterpreted the constitu-
tional provisions for presidential succession. He declared to the bemused White
House press corps ‘I am in control here’ while the President was in surgery and
Vice President George Bush was returning by air from Texas. Cannon, Reagan,
198–9.
36. Reagan, American Life, 254.
37. Cannon, Reagan, 189–90.
38. Ibid., 404.
39. Haig, Caveat, 85. Although Reagan did not give a major foreign policy speech
during his first year in office, his Secretaries of State and Defense did, most
notably Alexander Haig, ‘Address by the Secretary of State (Haig) Before the
American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington, April 24, 1981’, and Caspar
 Notes 209

Weinberger, ‘Address by the Secretary of Defense (Weinberger) at the United Press

International Luncheon of the American Newspaper Publishers Association
Meeting, Chicago, May 5, 1981’, American Foreign Policy Current Documents 1981
(Washington, DC: Department of State, 1984) 35–42.
40. Reagan, ‘Address to Members of the British Parliament, June 8, 1982’, Public
Papers, 1982, 742–8.
41. Ibid., 748.
42. Reagan, ‘Address before the Bundestag in Bonn, Federal Republic of Germany,
June 9, 1982’, Public Papers, 1982, 754–9.
43. Reagan, ‘Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union,
January 25, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 108.
44. Reagan, ‘American Legion’, 270.
45. Reagan, ‘Remarks at a Dinner Marking the 10th Anniversary of the Heritage
Foundation, October 3, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 1407–8.
46. Reagan, ‘Remarks to Members of the National Press Club on Arms Reductions
and Nuclear Weapons, November 18, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981, 1062–7.
47. See Haig, Caveat, 26–7, 87; Caspar Weinberger, Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical
Years in the Pentagon (London: Michael Joseph, 1990) 25.
48. Quoted in Cannon, Reagan, 162–3.
49. Frances FitzGerald, Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the
Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000) 330–1.
50. Cannon, Reagan, 163.
51. Reagan, ‘Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session with Reporters on the
Announcement of the United States Strategic Weapons Program, October 2,
1981’, Public Papers, 1981, 878–80.
52. Dumbrell, American Foreign Policy, 64.
53. Quoted in Memo, Charles Z. Wick to President Reagan, ‘Inflammatory Soviet
Statements About the President and US Policy’, March 21, 1984, folder Speeches
SP 729 Address to National Association of Evangelicals 3/8/83 (3 of 3), box SP
729-SP 781, WHORM Subject File SP (Speeches), RRL.
54. Reagan, ‘Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session at a Working Luncheon
with Out-of-Town Editors, October 16, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981, 956–7.
55. Reagan, ‘The President’s News Conference, November 10, 1981’, Public Papers,
1981, 1033.
56. Reagan, ‘National Press Club’, 1064–7; see also Letter, President Reagan to Leonid
Brezhnev, November 17, 1981 [declassified], folder Declassified Head of State
(USSR), RRL.
57. Robert Jay Lifton and Richard Falk, Indefensible Weapons: The Political and
Psychological Case Against Nuclearism (New York: Basic Books, 1982).
58. Reagan, American Life, 258, 547.
59. For example: Reagan, ‘Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the State of
the Union, January 25, 1984’, Public Papers, 1984, 93.
60. Reagan, ‘The President’s News Conference, March 31, 1982’, Public Papers, 1982,
398; Reagan, ‘Radio Address to the Nation on Arms Control and Reduction,
July 16, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 1042.
61. Reagan, American Life, 550.
62. Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World
(New York: Harper & Row, 1987) 243.
63. Handwritten Letter, President Reagan to Secretary General Gorbachev, November
28, 1985 [declassified], folder Declassified Head of State (USSR), RRL.
210 Notes

64. See Peter Schweizer, Victory: The Reagan Administration’s Secret Strategy that
Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993).
65. Raymond L. Garthoff, The Great Transition: American–Soviet Relations and the End
of the Cold War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1994) 764–5.
66. Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, We All Lost the Cold War (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994) 370.
67. Reagan, ‘The President’s News Conference, January 29, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981,
57.
68. Reagan, ‘Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Association of
Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, March 8, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 363–4.
69. Ibid., 364.
70. Reagan, ‘Interview With Henry Brandon of the London Sunday Times and News
Service on Domestic and Foreign Policy Issues, March 18, 1983’, Public Papers,
1983, 416.
71. Reagan, ‘Question-and-Answer Session with Reporters on Domestic and Foreign
Policy Issues, March 29, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 464.
72. Reagan, ‘Radio Address to the Nation on American International Broadcasting,
September 10, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 1250.
73. Reagan, ‘Heritage Foundation’, 1407.
74. Reagan, ‘Interview with Gary Clifford and Patricia Ryan of People Magazine,
December 6, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 1714.
75. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation and Other Countries on United States–Soviet
Relations, January 16, 1984’, Public Papers, 1984, 40–3.
76. Cannon, Reagan, 507–10.
77. Beth A. Fischer, The Reagan Reversal: Foreign Policy and the End of the Cold War
(Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1997).
78. Reagan, ‘Interview with Lou Cannon, David Hoffman, and Juan Williams of the
Washington Post on Foreign and Domestic Issues, January 16, 1984’, Public Papers,
1984, 63–4.
79. Memo, Tyrus W. Cobb to Robert C. McFarlane, January 18, 1984, folder SP833
(Soviet/US Relations, WH 1/16/84) 200000–204999, box SP833-SP891, WHORM
Subject File SP (Speeches), RRL.
80. Reagan, ‘Address at Commencement Exercises at the University of Notre Dame,
May 17, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981, 434.
81. Reagan, ‘Eureka College, 1982’, 582.
82. Reagan, ‘Address to British Parliament’, 744.
83. Reagan, ‘First Inaugural Address’, 4.
84. Reagan, ‘Proclamation 4841 – National Day of Recognition for Veterans of the
Vietnam Era, April 23, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981, 381.
85. See for example: Reagan, ‘Remarks at a Ceremony Commemorating the Initiation
of the Vietnam Leadership Program, November 10, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981,
1028.
86. Reagan, ‘Remarks on Presenting the Presidential Citizens Medal to Raymond
Weeks at a Veterans Day Ceremony, November 11, 1982’, Public Papers, 1982,
1445.
87. Quoted in Arnold R. Isaacs, Vietnam Shadows: The War, Its Ghosts, and Its Legacy
(Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) 49.
88. Ibid.
89. Reagan, ‘First Inaugural Address’, 3.
90. Reagan, ‘State of the Union 1984’, 92.
 Notes 211

91. Reagan, ‘Conservative Political Action Conference, 1983’, 256.

92. Haig, Caveat, 27.
93. Haig, ‘Newspaper Editors’ Address, 1981’, 35.
94. Haig, Caveat, 47.
95. Ibid., 125.
96. Colin L. Powell with Joseph E. Persico, My American Journey (New York: Random
House, 1995) 207–8.
97. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, 6, 22.
98. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 650.
99. Ibid., 106, 294, 648–9.
100. Powell, American Journey, 302–3.
101. Caspar W. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical Years in the Pentagon
(New York: Warner Books, 1990) 441–2. NB: This is the US edition of
Weinberger’s memoirs, which includes an appendix on the Weinberger Doctrine
not included in the British edition cited elsewhere in this chapter.
102. Powell, American Journey, 303.
103. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 649–51.
104. Quoted ibid., 651.
105. Smith, Monroe Doctrine, 152–60.
106. Walter LaFeber, Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America,
2nd edn (New York: W. W. Norton, 1993) 237–8, 282–3, 292–4, 305–7; LaFeber,
American Age, 720–1.
107. Quoted in Robert Dallek, Ronald Reagan: The Politics of Symbolism, new edn
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999) 166.
108. Smith, Monroe Doctrine, 188.
109. Haig, Caveat, 122–3.
110. Wills, Reagan’s America, 411.
111. Reagan, ‘Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on Central America,
April 27, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 601–7.
112. Reagan, ‘Interview with USA Today, April 26, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 587.
113. Haig, Caveat, 125–9.
114. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, 22–3.
115. Haig, Caveat, 128–9.
116. Cannon, Reagan, 391–401.
117. Reagan, ‘Remarks to Reporters Announcing the Deployment of United States
Forces in Beirut, Lebanon, August 20, 1982’, Public Papers, 1982, 1062–3; Reagan,
‘Letter to the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate
on the Deployment of United States Forces in Beirut, Lebanon, August 24, 1982’,
Public Papers, 1982, 1078–9.
118. Cannon, Reagan, 406–8.
119. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation Announcing the Formation of a New
Multinational Force in Lebanon, September 20, 1982’, Public Papers, 1982,
1187–9; Reagan, ‘Letter to the Speaker of the House and the President Pro
Tempore of the Senate Reporting on United States Participation in the
Multinational Force in Lebanon, September 29, 1982’, Public Papers, 1982, 1238.
120. Cannon, Reagan, 409–22, 436–41.
121. Reagan, ‘Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session with Regional Editors and
Broadcasters on the Situation in Lebanon, October 24, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983,
1501.
122. Cannon, President Reagan, 449; Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation on Events in
Lebanon and Grenada, October 27, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 1519.
212 Notes

123. Cannon, Reagan, 444–5, 449–57.

124. Reagan, ‘Radio Address to the Nation on the Budget Deficit, Central America,
and Lebanon, February 4, 1984’, Public Papers, 1984, 169.
125. Reagan, ‘Statement on the Situation in Lebanon, February 6, 1984’, Public
Papers, 1984, 177.
126. Reagan, ‘Statement on the Situation in Lebanon, February 7, 1984’, Public
Papers, 1984, 185.
127. Reagan, ‘Remarks at a Fundraiser for Republican Women Candidates on the
Occasion of Susan B. Anthony’s Birthday, February 15, 1984’, Public Papers,
1984, 216.
128. Cannon, Reagan, 389–457; Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 43–116; Weinberger,
Fighting for Peace, 94–122.
129. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 344.
130. Smith, Monroe Doctrine, 178–84; Hugh O’Shaughnessy, Grenada: Revolution,
Invasion and Aftermath (London: Sphere, 1984).
131. Reagan, ‘Remarks of the President and Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of
Dominica Announcing the Deployment of United States Forces in Grenada,
October 25, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 1505–8; Reagan, ‘Letter to the Speaker of
the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate on the Deployment of
United States Forces in Grenada, October 25, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983,
1512–13; Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation on Events in Lebanon and Grenada,’
Public Papers, 1983, 1520–2; Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 328–9; Weinberger,
Fighting for Peace, 73–4.
132. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation, Oct 27, 1983’, 1521.
133. Reagan, ‘Remarks in Bridgetown, Barbados, Following a Luncheon Meeting with
Leaders of Eastern Caribbean Countries, April 8, 1982’, Public Papers, 1982, 448.
134. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation on Defense and National Security, March 23,
1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 440.
135. Letter, Rev. Herbert Daughtry to President Reagan, March 25, 1983, folder
Speeches SP 735 Address to Nation on Defense and National Security 3/23/83
(7 of 8), box SP 729-781, WHORM Subject File SP (Speeches), RRL.
136. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation, October 27, 1983’, 1521.
137. Reagan, ‘Remarks Announcing Grenada, October 25, 1983’, 1505; Reagan,
‘Letter to the House & Senate, October 25, 1983’, 1512–13.
138. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 328–35.
139. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, 74–82.
140. Reagan, ‘Remarks Announcing Grenada, October 25, 1983’, 1506.
141. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 329.
142. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, 77.
143. Ibid., 85; Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation, October 27, 1983’, 1521.
144. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, 78.
145. Reagan, ‘Remarks Announcing Grenada, October 25, 1983’, 1507.
146. Reagan, ‘Letter to the House & Senate, October 25, 1983’, 1513.
147. Reagan, ‘Remarks Announcing the Appointment of Donald Rumsfeld as the
President’s Personal Representative in the Middle East, November 3, 1983’,
Public Papers, 1983, 1534.
148. Reagan, ‘Remarks to Military Personnel at Cherry Point, North Carolina, on the
United States Casualties in Lebanon and Grenada, November 4, 1983’, Public
Papers, 1983, 1540.
149. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, 84–7.
 Notes 213

150. Ibid., 89.

151. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation, October 27, 1983’, 1521.
152. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, 85.
153. Reagan, ‘Appointment of Donald Rumsfeld,’ 1533.
154. Memo, Senator John Tower to the Senate Committee Armed Services, Subject:
Grenada, November 9, 1983, folder CO 058 177165, box CO 001-075, WHORM
Subject File CO (Countries), RRL.
155. William Schneider, ‘ “Rambo” and Reality: Having It Both Ways’, Eagle
Resurgent? The Reagan Era in American Foreign Policy, ed. Kenneth A. Oye, Robert
J. Lieber and Donald Rothchild (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1987) 59.
156. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 339–40.
157. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (New York: Harper Perennial, 1995)
328–33.
158. Quoted ibid., 340–1.
159. Quoted in Memo, Charles Z. Wick to President Reagan, ‘Inflammatory Soviet
Statements About the President and US Policy’, March 21, 1984, folder Speeches
SP 729 Address to National Association of Evangelicals 3/8/83 (3 of 3), box SP
729-SP 781, WHORM Subject File SP (Speeches), RRL.
160. Letter, President Reagan to President Brezhnev, April 24, 1981 [declassified],
folder Declassified Head of State (USSR), RRL.
161. Reagan, ‘Remarks to Military Personnel, November 4, 1983’, 1541.
162. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 345.
163. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, 86–7.
164. Reagan, ‘Remarks to Military Personnel, November 4, 1983’, 1541.
165. Reagan, ‘Appointment of Donald Rumsfeld,’ 1534.
166. Reagan, ‘Ceremony for Freed American Hostages, January 27, 1981’, 42.
167. Reagan, ‘Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session with Reporters on the
Pentagon Report on the Security of United States Marines in Lebanon,
December 27, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 1748.
168. See Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, ch. 32–3.
169. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, 140–1.
170. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation on the United States Air Strike Against Libya’,
Public Papers, 1986, 468–9; Larry M. Speakes, ‘Statement by Principal Deputy
Press Secretary Speakes on the United States Air Strike Against Libya, April 14,
1986’, Public Papers, 1986, 468; Speakes, ‘Statement by Principal Deputy Press
Secretary Speakes on the United States Air Strike Against Libya, April 15, 1986’,
Public Papers, 1986, 470–1; Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 677–85; Weinberger,
Fighting for Peace, 132–41.
171. Cannon, Reagan, 653–4.
172. Geir Lundestad, ‘The United States and Western Europe Under Ronald Reagan’,
in David E. Kyvig, ed., Reagan and the World (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
1990) 54.
173. Reagan, ‘Letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President
Pro Tempore of the Senate on the United States Air Strike against Libya, April
16, 1986’, Public Papers, 1986, 478.
174. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 686.
175. Speakes, ‘Statement on Libya, April 15, 1986’, 470.
176. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 687.
177. Robert I. Rotberg, ‘The Reagan Era in Africa’, in Kyvig, ed., Reagan and the World,
131.
214 Notes

178. ‘Newsweek/Gallup Poll on Libyan Raid, April 17–18, 1986’, Gallup Report, no. 247
(April 1986) 3.
179. ‘Gallup Poll on Reagan Popularity, May 16–19, 1986’, Gallup Report, no. 248
(May 1986) 30–1.
180. ‘Newsweek/Gallup Poll on Libyan Raid’, 8.
181. John E. Rielly, ed., American Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy 1987 (Chicago:
Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, 1987) 32–3.
182. Reagan, ‘Veterans of Foreign Wars, August 15, 1983’, 1174.
183. Reagan, ‘Eureka College, May 9, 1982’, 582–3.
184. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation About Christmas and the Situation in Poland,
December 23, 1981’, Public Papers, 1981, 1186–8.
185. Reagan, ‘Statement on the Soviet Attack on a Korean Civilian Airliner,
September 1, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 1221.
186. Reagan, ‘Remarks to Reporters on the Soviet Attack on a Korean Civilian
Airliner, September 2, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 1223–4; Reagan, ‘Address to the
Nation on the Soviet Attack on as Korean Civilian Airliner, September 5, 1983’,
Public Papers, 1983, 1227–30.
187. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation, September 5, 1983’, 1228; see Draft with
Handwritten Sections, Presidential Television Address: Flight 007, September 5,
1983, document 16766355, folder SP799 167662-End, box SP799-SP832-36
WHORM Subject File SP (Speeches), RRL.
188. Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation, September 5, 1983’, 1228.
189. Reagan, ‘Radio Address to the Nation on the Soviet Attack on a Korean Civilian
Airliner, September 17, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, book II, 1296.
190. Quoted in Cannon, Reagan, 742–3fn.
191. Reagan, ‘Radio Address, September 17, 1983’, 1296.
192. Reagan, ‘Remarks at Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois, February 6, 1984’, Public
Papers, 1984, 175.
193. Reagan, ‘Radio Address to the Nation on the Situation in Central America,
August 13, 1983’, Public Papers, 1983, 1157.
194. Reagan, ‘Radio Address to the Nation on Central America, February 16, 1985’,
Public Papers, 1985, 173.
195. Reagan, ‘Remarks at the Annual Dinner of the Conservative Political Action
Conference, March 1, 1985’, Public Papers, 1985, 229.
196. Reagan, ‘Radio Address, February 16, 1985’, 173.
197. Reagan, ‘Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the
Union, February 6, 1985’, Public Papers, 1985, 135.
198. Quoted in Susanne Jonas, ‘Reagan Administration Policy in Central America’, in
Kyvig, Reagan and the World, 103.
199. Robert Kagan, A Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua, 1977–1990
(New York: Free Press, 1996) 355–6.
200. Kirkpatrick, ‘Dictatorships and Double Standards’.
201. Holly Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua (Boston: South End Press, 1988)
168–70, 314;
202. Ibid., 165–70; Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 306–7, 404–6, 425–6.
203. See Cannon, Reagan, 589–738; John Tower, Edmund Muskie and Brent
Scowcroft, The Tower Commission Report: The Full Text of the President’s Special
Review Board (New York: Times Books, 1987); Lawrence E. Walsh, Firewall: The
Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997).
204. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, 688.
 Notes 215

205. Louis Harris, Inside America (New York: Vintage, 1987) 310–11, 421.
206. Reagan, ‘US Military Academy, May 27, 1981’, 461–2.
207. Reagan, ‘Interview with Representatives of West European Publications, May 21,
1982’, Public Papers, 1982, 698.
208. Reagan, ‘State of the Union, 1983’, 103.
209. Reagan, ‘Conservative Political Action Conference, February 18, 1983’, 255.
210. Reagan, ‘State of the Union, 1984’, 87–8.
211. Reagan, ‘Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the State of the Union,
January 25, 1988’, Public Papers, 1988–1989, 85.
212. Reagan, ‘Farewell Address, January 11, 1989’, Public Papers, 1988–1989, 1718–23.
213. Jerry Hagstrom, Beyond Reagan: The New Landscape of American Politics (New
York: Penguin, 1988) 13.
214. Kevin Phillips, The Politics of Rich and Poor: Wealth and the American Electorate in
the Reagan Aftermath (New York: Random House, 1990) esp. 3–31; see also
Hagstrom, Beyond Reagan; Lewis H. Lapham, Money and Class in America: Notes
and Observations on the Civil Religion (London: Picador, 1989).
215. Gallup found Reagan’s final approval rating to be 63 per cent while a New York
Times-CBS poll rated him as high as 68 per cent. Cannon, Reagan, 894.
216. Cannon, Reagan, 830.
217. Reagan, ‘Farewell Address’.

6 George Bush – the ‘Vision Thing’ and

the New World Order
1. David Mervin, George Bush and the Guardianship Presidency (Basingstoke:
Macmillan – now Palgrave Macmillan, 1996) 28–37.
2. Dilys M. Hill and Phil Williams, eds, The Bush Presidency: Triumphs and Adversities
(Basingstoke: Macmillan – now Palgrave Macmillan, 1994) 2–3.
3. Mervin, Bush, 21, 33, 214.
4. Hill and Williams, Bush Presidency, 217.
5. Fred Barnes, ‘Mr. Popularity’, New Republic, January 8 and 15, 1990, vol. 202,
nos 2 and 3, 12.
6. For example, see Charles Krauthammer, ‘The Unipolar Moment’ in Graham
Allison and Gregory F. Treverton, eds, Rethinking America’s Security: Beyond Cold
War to New World Order (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992) 295–306.
7. See Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and
Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987) 514–35;
David P. Calleo, Beyond Hegemony: The Future of the Western Alliance (New York:
Wheatsheaf, 1987); Robert Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987) esp. ch. 10; Samuel P.
Huntington, ‘The US – Decline or Renewal?’ Foreign Affairs, vol. 67, no. 2
(Winter 1988/89) 76–96; William Pfaff, Barbarian Sentiments: How the American
Century Ends (New York: Hill & Wang, 1989); Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound To Lead:
The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990); Henry
Nau, The Myth of America’s Decline: Leading the World Economy into the 1990s
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).
8. Quoted in Mervin, Bush, 214.
9. George Bush, ‘Inaugural Address, January 20, 1989’, Public Papers of the Presidents
of the United States: George Bush, 1989 (hereafter Public Papers followed by year).
All citations for the Bush public papers are taken from the on-line version at
216 Notes

⬍www.csdl.tamu.edu/bushlib/papers/⬎; see also McEvoy-Levy, American

Exceptionalism, ch. 2.
10. Bush, ‘Address on Administration Goals Before a Joint Session of Congress,
February 9, 1989’, Public Papers, 1989.
11. Ibid.
12. Bush, ‘Remarks at the United States Coast Guard Academy Commencement
Ceremony in New London, Connecticut, May 24, 1989’, Public Papers, 1989.
13. Quoted in Mervin, Bush, 211.
14. Mervin, Bush, 210–13.
15. Steve Garber and Phil Williams, ‘Defense Policy’, in Hill and Williams, Bush
Presidency, 187–8.
16. See Mervin, Bush, 160–4; Powell, American Journey, 329–96, 405–9; Bob
Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991) 45–67.
17. Garber and Williams, ‘Defense Policy’, 188.
18. Bush, ‘Remarks at US Coast Guard, May 24, 1989’.
19. Bush, ‘Address to Congress, February 9, 1989’.
20. Bush, ‘The President’s News Conference in Paris, July 16, 1989’, Public Papers,
1989.
21. Bush, ‘Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session with Reporters on the
Relaxation of East German Border Controls, November 9, 1989’, Public Papers,
1989.
22. Russell Watson et al., ‘No Time For Showboating’, Newsweek, November 27, 1989,
30–1.
23. Bush, ‘Inaugural Address’.
24. Bush, ‘Remarks at the Annual Conference of the Veterans of Foreign Wars,
March 6, 1989’, Public Papers, 1989.
25. Woodward, Commanders, 90, 230.
26. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 354.
27. Ibid., 118.
28. Newsweek, May 22, 1989, 37.
29. Powell, American Journey, 420–1.
30. Ibid., 422.
31. Woodward, Commanders, 159.
32. Bush, ‘Letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro
Tempore of the Senate on United States Military Action in Panama, December 21,
1989’, Public Papers, 1989.
33. Bush, ‘Address to the Nation Announcing United States Military Action in
Panama, December 20, 1989’, Public Papers, 1989.
34. Powell, American Journey, 426.
35. Bush, ‘Address to the Nation, December 20, 1989’.
36. Bush, ‘Remarks Announcing the Surrender of General Manuel Noriega in
Panama, January 3, 1990’, Public Papers, 1990.
37. Woodward, Commanders, 115, 139–40.
38. Bush, ‘Letter to the Speaker of the House, December 21, 1989’.
39. Quoted in Fisher, Presidential War Power, 145–6.
40. Mervin, Bush, 168.
41. Woodward, Commanders, 194.
42. ‘The Panama Invasion: A Newsweek Poll’, Newsweek, January 1, 1990, 22.
43. Graham Hueber, ‘Approval Rating Second Highest in Poll’s History’, Gallup Poll
Monthly, no. 292 (January 1990) 16–17.
 Notes 217

44. Frank Newport, ‘Bush Approval Rate and What’s Behind It’, Gallup Poll Monthly,
no. 293 (February 1990) 17–19.
45. Woodward, Commanders, 162–71.
46. Bush, ‘The President’s News Conference, December 21, 1989’, Public Papers, 1989.
47. Powell, American Journey, 424–5; Woodward, Commanders, 168–9.
48. Woodward, Commanders, 195.
49. Powell, American Journey, 434.
50. Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict 1990–1991: Diplomacy
and War in the New World Order (London: Faber & Faber, 1993) 42–50.
51. The relevant UN Security Council Resolutions are reprinted in full in Dilip Hiro,
Desert Shield to Desert Storm: The Second Gulf War (New York: Routledge, 1992)
526–52.
52. Bush, ‘Remarks at a Fundraising Luncheon for Rep. Bill Grant, September 6,
1990’, Public Papers, 1990.
53. Quoted in Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, The Imperial Temptation:
The New World Order and America’s Purpose (New York: Council on Foreign
Relations Press, 1992) 81.
54. Powell, American Journey, 463; Tucker and Hendrickson, Imperial Temptation, 81;
Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 322
55. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 316, 349.
56. Bush, ‘Address to the Nation Announcing Allied Military Action in the Persian
Gulf, January 16, 1991’, Public Papers, 1991.
57. Bush, ‘Address to the Nation Announcing the Deployment of United States
Armed Forces to Saudi Arabia, August 8, 1990’, Public Papers, 1990.
58. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 320, 328.
59. Powell, American Journey, 491.
60. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 389.
61. Ibid., 341, 358, 374–5.
62. Bush, ‘Address to the Nation, January 16, 1991’.
63. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 375.
64. Ibid., 303–4, 313, 416.
65. ‘Senate Debate on the Persian Gulf War, January 10–12, 1991’, Congressional
Record, 102nd Cong. 1st Sess. (January 10–12, 1991) vol. 137, nos. 6–8, on-line at
⬍http://thomas.loc.gov/r102/r102.html⬎.
66. Quoted in John Robert Greene, The Presidency of George Bush (Lawrence, KS:
University of Kansas Press, 2000), 124.
67. Ibid., 123.
68. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 428, 435, 446.
69. Ibid., 353.
70. Powell, American Journey, 466–7, 470; Bush, ‘Remarks and an Exchange With
Reporters on the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait, August 5, 1990’, Public Papers, 1990.
71. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 418.
72. Bush, ‘Remarks to the American Legislative Exchange Council, March 1, 1991’,
Public Papers, 1991.
73. Bush, ‘Address to the Nation on the Suspension of Allied Offensive Combat
Operations in the Persian Gulf, February 27, 1991’, Public Papers, 1991; emphasis
added.
74. Bush, ‘Address to the Nation, August 8, 1990’.
75. Quoted in Woodward, Commanders, 273.
76. Bush, ‘Address to the Nation, January 16, 1991’.
218 Notes

77. Powell, American Journey, 519.

78. Quoted in Woodward, Commanders, 339.
79. Ibid., 306–7.
80. Powell, American Journey, 487.
81. Bush, ‘Address to the Nation, January 16, 1991’.
82. Powell, American Journey, 487.
83. Bush, ‘Address to the Nation, January 16, 1991’.
84. Powell, American Journey, 496.
85. Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1994); Greene, George Bush, 133–4.
86. Figures from US intelligence agencies, Central Command (CENTCOM) and Iraqi
sources cited in Freedman and Karsh, Gulf Conflict, 408–9.
87. Quoted in Hiro, Desert Shield, 387–90.
88. Powell, American Journey, 519–21.
89. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 448.
90. Ibid., 487.
91. Ibid., 483.
92. Powell, American Journey, 523.
93. Freedman and Karsh, Gulf Conflict, 408.
94. Hiro, Desert Shield, 268, 310, 330, 347, 379, 481.
95. Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1991 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc.,
1992) 67–8.
96. Ibid., 57.
97. Bush, ‘Radio Address to United States Armed Forces Stationed in the Persian Gulf
Region, March 2, 1991’, Public Papers, 1991.
98. Powell, American Journey, 532.
99. Bush, ‘Remarks to the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
February 15, 1991’, Public Papers, 1991.
100. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 472.
101. Powell, American Journey, 490.
102. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 464.
103. Quoted in Tucker and Hendrickson, Imperial Temptation, 146.
104. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 433.
105. Quoted in Schneider, ‘The Old Politics and the New World Order’, in Kenneth
A. Oye, Robert J. Lieber and Donald Rothchild, eds, Eagle in a New World:
American Grand Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era (New York: HarperCollins, 1992)
66.
106. Ibid., 64, 66–7.
107. Laura Silber and Allan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia, rev. edn (London: Penguin,
1996) 150–2, 163–4, 201.
108. Bush, ‘The President’s News Conference, June 4, 1992’, Public Papers, 1992.
109. Bush, ‘The President’s News Conference, August 7, 1992’, Public Papers, 1992.
110. Bush, ‘The President’s News Conference in Kennebunkport, Maine, August 8,
1992’, Public Papers, 1992.
111. ‘Presidential Debate in St. Louis, October 11, 1992’, Public Papers, 1992.
112. John L. Hirsch and Robert B. Oakley, Somalia and Operation Restore Hope:
Reflections on Peacemaking and Peacekeeping (Washington, DC: United States
Institute of Peace Press, 1995) 3–16.
113. Bush, ‘Address to the Nation on the Situation in Somalia, December 4, 1992’,
Public Papers, 1992.
 Notes 219

114. Lydia Saad, ‘ “Operation Restore Hope” Gets Public’s Blessing’, Gallup Monthly,
no. 327 (December 1992) 18–20.
115. Bush, ‘Address to the Nation, December 4, 1992’.
116. Saad, ‘Operation Restore Hope’, 18–20.
117. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 370.
118. Bush, ‘Remarks at the United States Coast Guard Academy Commencement
Ceremony in New London, Connecticut, May 24, 1989’, Public Papers, 1989.
119. Bush, ‘Address to the 44th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in
New York, New York, September 25, 1989’, Public Papers, 1989.
120. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 353–5.
121. Bush, ‘The President’s News Conference on the Persian Gulf Crisis, August 30,
1990’, Public Papers, 1990.
122. Bush, ‘Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Persian Gulf Crisis
and the Federal Budget Deficit, September 11, 1990’, Public Papers, 1990.
123. Bush, ‘Address to the 46th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in
New York City, September 2, 1991’, Public Papers, 1991.
124. Michael Duffy and Dan Goodgame, Marching in Place: The Status Quo Presidency
of George Bush (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992) 183.
125. Bush, ‘Address to the United Nations, September 2, 1991’.
126. Bush, ‘Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union,
January 29, 1991’, Public Papers, 1991.
127. Bush and Scowcroft, World Transformed, 491.
128. Ibid., 566.

7 Bill Clinton and the ‘Indispensable Nation’

1. Quoted in William G. Hyland, Clinton’s World: Remaking American Foreign Policy
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999) 17.
2. See, for example, Larry Berman and Emily O. Goldman, ‘Clinton’s Foreign
Policy at Midterm’, in Colin Campbell and Bert A. Rockman, eds, The Clinton
Presidency: First Appraisals (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1996).
3. Emily O. Goldman and Larry Berman, ‘Engaging the World: First Impressions of
the Clinton Foreign Policy Legacy’, in Colin Campbell and Bert A. Rockman,
eds, The Clinton Legacy (New York: Chatham House, 2000) 230.
4. Ibid.
5. Quoted ibid., 233.
6. William J. Clinton, ‘Address to the UN General Assembly, New York City,
September 27, 1993’, Press Release, White House Office of the Press Secretary.
All of Clinton’s speeches and pronouncements cited in this chapter are taken
from White House press releases. They can also be found in the multi-volume
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton.
7. Anthony Lake, ‘From Containment to Enlargement: Address at the School for
Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC,
September 21, 1993’, US Department of State Dispatch, vol. 4, no. 39 (September
27, 1993).
8. Dumbrell, American Foreign Policy, 189.
9. James M. McCormick, ‘Clinton and Foreign Policy: Some Legacies for a New
Century’, in Steven E. Schier, ed., The Postmodern Presidency: Bill Clinton’s Legacy
in US Politics (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000) 60.
10. Clinton, ‘Address to the UN General Assembly, September 27, 1993’.
220 Notes

11. Madeleine K. Albright, ‘Use of Force in a Post-Cold War World: Address at the
National War College, National Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington,
DC, September 23, 1993’, US State Department Dispatch, vol. 4, no. 39 (September
27, 1993).
12. Hyland, Clinton’s World, 25.
13. Lake, ‘From Containment to Enlargement, September 21, 1993’.
14. Clinton, ‘Address to the UN General Assembly, September 27, 1993’.
15. Albright, ‘Use of Force in a Post-Cold War World, September 23, 1993’.
16. Lake, ‘From Containment to Enlargement, September 21, 1993’.
17. Clinton, ‘Address to the UN General Assembly, September 27, 1993’.
18. Clinton, ‘Remarks by the President on American Security in a Changing World,
George Washington University, Washington, DC, August 5, 1996’.
19. Clinton, ‘Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 1997’.
20. McEvoy-Levy, American Exceptionalism, 121.
21. Quoted in Dumbrell, American Foreign Policy, 181.
22. Ibid., 190.
23. Lake, ‘From Containment to Enlargement, September 21, 1993’.
24. Dumbrell, American Foreign Policy,183, 189.
25. Martin Walker, Clinton: The President They Deserve (London: Fourth Estate, 1996)
259.
26. See Stanley A. Renshon, High Hopes: The Clinton Presidency and the Politics of
Ambition (New York: Routledge, 1998) ch. 10.
27. Quoted in Dumbrell, American Foreign Policy, 180.
28. Walker, Clinton, 33.
29. Ibid., 1–6.
30. Quoted in Dumbrell, American Foreign Policy, 180.
31. Clinton, ‘Announcement of Lifting of Trade Embargo on Vietnam, February 3,
1994’.
32. Clinton, ‘Statement on the Normalization of Diplomatic Relations with Vietnam,
July 11, 1995’.
33. Clinton, ‘Remarks by the President in Toast Remarks at State Dinner, Presidential
Palace, Hanoi, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, November 17, 2000’.
34. Clinton, ‘Inaugural Address, January 20, 1993’.
35. Michael G. MacKinnon, The Evolution of US Peacekeeping Policy Under Clinton:
A Fairweather Friend (London: Frank Cass, 2000) ch. 2.
36. Albright, ‘Use of Force in a Post-Cold War World, September 23, 1993’.
37. Ibid.
38. US Department of State, The Clinton Administration’s Policy on Reforming
Multilateral Peace Operations, May 1994 (Washington, DC: US Department of State,
Bureau of Public Affairs, 1994) 4–5.
39. Hyland, Clinton’s World, 21.
40. Quoted in Karin von Hippel, Democracy by Force: US Military Intervention in the
Post-Cold War World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 8.
41. Quoted ibid., 7.
42. John F. Harris, ‘A Man of Caution: National Security Adviser Samuel Berger Steers
a Tight Course on Kosovo’, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, May 24, 1999,
7.
43. von Hippel, Democracy by Force, 60–1; Hyland, Clinton’s World, 56–9.
44. Clinton, ‘Remarks by the President, The Rotunda, Woolsey Hall, Yale University,
New Haven, Conn., October 9, 1993’.
 Notes 221

45. von Hippel, 61.

46. Clinton, ‘Remarks by the President on Meet the Press, November 7, 1993’.
47. von Hippel, 63.
48. Ibid., 78
49. Quoted Ibid.
50. Senator Robert Byrd, a Democrat and Chair of the Senate Appropriations
Committee, had been criticizing the administration’s Somalia policy since June.
See MacKinnon, US Peacekeeping, 65–7.
51. ‘Situation in Somalia: Let Us Declare Victory and Safely Withdraw’ (House of
Representatives – October 5, 1993) Congressional Record, vol. 139, no. 133, H7382.
52. ‘Withdraw United States Troops from Somalia Now’, ibid.
53. Linda B. Miller, ‘The Clinton Years: Reinventing US Foreign Policy’, International
Affairs, vol. 70, no. 4 (1994) 627; quoted in MacKinnon, US Peacekeeping, 78.
54. MacKinnon, US Peacekeeping, 78.
55. Ibid., 79–80.
56. Ibid., 108.
57. Quoted in Walker, Clinton, 262.
58. Silber and Little, Death of Yugoslavia, 287–8.
59. Walker, Clinton, 265–6.
60. Hyland, Clinton’s World, 39.
61. Clinton, ‘Statement on the Sarajevo Marketplace Shelling, February 9, 1994’.
62. Walker, Clinton, 275.
63. Clinton, ‘Radio Address, February 19, 1994’.
64. Richard Sobel, The Impact of Public Opinion on US Foreign Policy Since Vietnam:
Constraining the Colossus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 189.
65. Silber and Little, Death of Yugoslavia, ch. 28.
66. Clinton, ‘Statement on the Bosnia-Herzegovina Arms Embargo, August 11, 1995’;
Clinton, ‘The President’s News Conference with President Kim Yong-sum of
South Korea, July 27, 1995’.
67. Clinton, ‘Statement on the Arms Embargo, August 11, 1995’.
68. Clinton, ‘The President’s News Conference, May 23, 1995’.
69. Clinton, ‘The President’s News Conference, June 3, 1995’.
70. Clinton, ‘Statement on the Bosnia-Herzegovina Arms Embargo, August 11, 1995’.
71. Silber and Little, Death of Yugoslavia, ch. 29.
72. Clinton, ‘Opening Statement at a News Conference before the Balkan Proximity
Peace Talks, October 31, 1995’.
73. Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation on the Bosnian Peace Agreement, November 27,
1995’.
74. Clinton, ‘Statement on the Bosnian Peace Agreement, November 21, 1995’.
75. Ibid.
76. Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation, November 27, 1995’.
77. Clinton, ‘Remarks to the Committee for American Leadership in Bosnia,
December 6, 1995’.
78. Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation, November 27, 1995’.
79. Richard Holbrooke, To End a War (New York: Modern Library, 1999) xv, 360.
80. Strobe Talbott, ‘Remarks by Deputy Secretary Talbott at a State Department Town
Meeting, Washington, DC, November 1, 1995’, US State Department Dispatch
Supplement, vol. 6, no. 5 (December 1995).
81. Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation, November 27, 1995’.
82. Holbrooke, End a War, 361.
222 Notes

83. Walker, Clinton, 282.

84. Clinton, ‘Opening Statement, October 31, 1995’.
85. Talbott, ‘Remarks at a State Department Town Meeting, November 1, 1995’.
86. Ibid., 47.
87. Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation, November 27, 1995’.
88. Goldman and Berman, ‘Engaging the World’, 227.
89. Michael MccGwire, ‘Why Did We Bomb Belgrade?’ International Affairs, vol. 76,
no. 1 (January 2000) 1–23.
90. Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation on Airstrikes Against Serbian Targets in the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), March 24, 1999’.
91. Clinton, ‘Interview with Dan Rather of CBS News, March 31, 1999’.
92. Quoted in Barton Gellman, ‘With No Credible Alternative, the Allies Turned to
Bombing’, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, March 29, 1999, 16.
93. MccGwire, ‘Why Did We Bomb Belgrade?’ 14.
94. Clinton, ‘Remarks on the Situation in Kosovo, March 22, 1999’.
95. Clinton, ‘Remarks on the Situation in the Balkans and an Exchange with
Reporters, April 5, 1999’.
96. Clinton, ‘Address to the Nation, March 24, 1999’.
97. Clinton, ‘Interview with Dan Rather, March 31, 1999’.
98. John F. Harris, ‘And if Airstrikes Weren’t Enough … ?’ Washington Post National
Weekly Edition, April 5, 1999, 9.
99. Barton Gellman, ‘Is This “Immaculate Coercion”? The Limits of Reliance on Air
Power Become Clear in Kosovo’, Washington Post National Weekly Edition,
April 5, 1999, 6.
100. Quoted in ibid.
101. MccGwire, ‘Why Did We Bomb Belgrade?’ 17.
102. Ibid., 16–18.
103. Clinton, ‘Interview with Dan Rather, March 31, 1999’.
104. Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1999 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc.,
2000) 32.
105. Michael Dobbs, ‘Post-Mortem on NATO’s Bombing Campaign’, Washington Post
National Weekly Edition, July 19–26, 1999, 23.
106. Goldman and Berman, ‘Engaging the World’.
107. Gallup: Public Opinion 1999, 34–41.
108. Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 2000 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc.,
2001) 422.
109. Gallup: Public Opinion 2000.
110. McEvoy-Levy, American Exceptionalism, 141.
111. McCormick, ‘Clinton and Foreign Policy’, 61.
112. Ibid., 67.
113. McCormick, ‘Clinton and Foreign Policy’, 73.
114. Barton Gellman, ‘US Strikes at Iraqi Targets,’ Washington Post, December 17,
1998, A01.
115. Eugene Robinson, ‘US Steps Up Attack on Iraq’, Washington Post, December 18,
1998, A1.
116. Andrew J. Bacevich, ‘The Clinton Doctrine: Don’t Ask’, Washington Post,
January 3, 1999, C5; quoted in Goldman and Berman, 234.
 Notes 223

8 Conclusions: American Exceptionalism and

the Legacy of Vietnam
1. George W. Bush, ‘Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation,
September 11, 2001’, Press Release, The White House Office of the Press
Secretary. All speeches and remarks by President Bush cited in this chapter are
taken from White House press releases.
2. Quoted in Sharon Krum, ‘Bush’s Secret Weapon,’ The Guardian, May 7, 2002, G2
p. 9.
3. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, The White House,
September 2002.
4. Bush, ‘Remarks by the President in Photo Opportunity with National Security
Team, September 12, 2001’.
5. Bush, ‘Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People,
September 20, 2001’.
6. Bush, ‘Remarks by President Bush and President Megawati of Indonesia in a
Photo Opportunity, September 19, 2001’.
7. R. W. Apple, Jr., ‘Afghanistan as Vietnam’, New York Times, October 31, 2001.
8. Michael R. Gordon with Eric Schmitt, ‘US Putting Off Plan to Use G.I.s in Afghan
Caves’, New York Times, December 27, 2001.
9. Michael R. Gordon, ‘A Vigorous Debate on US War Tactics’, New York Times,
November 4, 2001; Apple, ‘Afghanistan as Vietnam’.
10. Bush, ‘Address to a Joint Session of the Congress, September 20, 2001’.
11. Simon Jeffrey, ‘Amnesty Demands an Inquiry as Hundreds Die in Fort Siege’,
The Guardian, November 28, 2001.
12. Michael Byers, ‘US Doesn’t Have the Right to Decide Who Is Or Isn’t a POW’,
The Guardian, January 14, 2002, 18.
13. Bush, ‘Radio Address to the Nation, September 15, 2001’.
14. Bush, ‘The President’s State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002’.
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Index

Adams, John Quincy 11 missionary strand of 2, 5, 8, 10–14,

Afghanistan 21–2, 34–5, 60, 85, 90–1, 92–4,
and al-Qaeda 181, 192–3 97–8, 105, 113, 114, 115–16,
Soviet invasion of 76, 79, 81, 83, 85, 117, 127, 144, 153–4, 156–7,
115, 122, 123, 124, 186 160–2, 173, 183–4
US war in 192–3 and Ronald Reagan 85–7, 88, 89–91,
African Americans 15, 23 92–4, 97–8, 105, 113, 114,
Aideed, Mohammed Farah 166 115–16, 117, 118, 124–7, 129–30,
Albert, Carl 52 185–6
Albright, Madeleine 161, 164–5, 174, scholarly debate over 2–4
175 and Second World War 14, 20–1
al-Qaeda 177, 181, 182, 191–3 and September 11, 2001 1, 183, 191
‘American Century’ 20, 26 and US foreign policy 1–2, 4–6,
American Creed 7 11–14, 16–17, 20–5, 45–6, 48,
American Enterprise Institute 65 55, 56–7, 58–9, 105, 113, 114,
American exceptionalism 115–16, 117, 118, 124–7,
belief in 1–2, 4, 8–11, 14, 17, 20, 129–30, 153–4, 155–8, 160–2,
21–5, 26–7, 33–6, 37, 40–1, 42–3, 173, 183–93
44, 45–6, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61–2, and Vietnam syndrome 19, 58–9,
65, 67–8, 73–6, 82, 85–7, 88, 188–91
89–91, 92–4, 97–8, 105, 113, 114, and Vietnam War 26–36, 40–6, 58,
115–16, 117, 118, 127, 132–4, 184–5
143, 144–5, 153–4, 155–8, 159, see also American Creed, American
160–2, 173, 183–8, 193 nationalism; American national
and Bill Clinton 159, 160–2, 173, identity;
175–80, 186 ‘Beacon to the world’ rhetoric; ‘City
challenges to 14–17, 26–30, 33, 36, upon a hill’; Manifest Destiny
40–1, 73–6 American nationalism 1, 7–8
and Cold War 6, 21–5, 26, 37, 58–9 American national identity 1–2, 6–8,
debate over end of 2–3, 17, 21, 16, 34, 73–6
26–30, 33–9, 40–1, 42–3 American Revolution 104, 124
definitions of 1–4, 8–14 Americas Watch 125
exemplary strand of 2, 3, 5, 8, Amnesty International 192–3
10–14, 21, 34–6, 45–6, 60, 144, Anderson, Benedict 1, 8
153–4, 183–4 Angola 55
and George Bush 6, 132–4, 143–4, anti-imperialists 12–13, 36, 184
153–4, 155–8, 186 anti-war movement
and George W. Bush 1, 183, 191–3 in Persian Gulf War 145
and Gerald Ford 41, 42–3, 44, 45–6, in Vietnam War 27, 35, 163
54, 55 Arafat, Yasir 174
and Jimmy Carter 56, 57, 58–9, Armey, Richard 181
61–2, 67–8, 73–6, 82, 93, 185 arms control 54, 64, 81, 82, 96, 97, 98,
and legacy of Vietnam 2, 26, 33–9, 100, 101, 128–9, 135
40–1, 42–3, 44, 56, 57, 58–9, 62, Atkinson, Rick 148
73–6 atomic bomb 20, 90

227
228 Index

Bacevich, Andrew 182 and the end of the Cold War 6, 132,
Baker, James A., III 134 135–6
and Persian Gulf War 142, 149 foreign policy of 134–5, 154–7
and use of force 137 and ‘New World Order’ 155–7, 183
Balkans 152, 169–80 Panama invasion 137–41, 154,
Barnes, Fred 132 156, 186
‘Beacon to the world’ rhetoric 1, 9, 24, and Persian Gulf War 141–52, 154,
43, 44, 59, 62, 89, 118, 157 155–6, 157, 186
Begin, Menachem 72 and Ronald Reagan 131, 132–4, 136
Beirut 110–12 and Saddam Hussein 142–4, 150–1
Bell, Daniel 2–3, 17, 26 and Somalia 153–4, 166, 168
Bellah, Robert 8, 75 and Soviet Union 135–6
Berger, Samuel R. ‘Sandy’ 166, 175 and ‘Thousand Points of Light’ 155
Berlin Wall 135–6 and use of force 136–7, 145–6, 148–9
Bermúdez, Enrique 124 and Vietnam syndrome 136–7,
Bicentennial of the United States 54 138–9, 140–1, 146–54, 157, 186
Bin Laden, Osama 177, 182, 191–3 and ‘the vision thing’ 131–4, 135–6,
Bishop, Maurice 112–13 154, 160, 186
Bode, Ken 75–6 and Yugoslavia 152, 154, 169
Bosnia-Herzegovina 152, 154, 157, Bush, George W. 1, 15, 183, 191–3
163, 169–75, 177, 180, 181, 182, and Afghanistan 192–3
186, 189 and American exceptionalism 1,
Bradley, Bill 145 183, 191
Brandon, Henry 99 and Iraq 193
Brands, H. W. 5 and September 11, 2001 1, 183, 191
Brewster, Kingman Jr. 36 and US National Security Strategy
Brezhnev, Leonid 64, 90, 117–18 190
Britain 16, 112, 117, 120, 144 and Vietnam syndrome 191, 192–3
British Commonwealth 117 and War on Terror 191–3
Brodie, Bernard 30
Brody, Reed 124–5 Caddell, Patrick 72–3, 74, 75
Brown, Sherrod 167 Cambodia 26, 32, 33, 43–4, 45, 191
Brzezinski, Zbigniew 70–1 Mayaguez incident 47–53
and Cyrus Vance 57–8, 77–8 Vietnamese invasion of 70–1
foreign policy views of 57–8, 59, 62, Camp David agreements 71–2
67–8 Canada 108
and human rights policy 62 Cannon, Lou 85, 91, 95, 110–11,
and Iranian hostage crisis 78–9 126, 130
opinion of Jimmy Carter 67–8 Caribbean 112–19
and use of force 58, 77–9 Carter Doctrine 81
and Vietnam syndrome 77–9 Carter, Jimmy 55, 56–84, 87–8,
Buchanan, Pat 145 93, 95, 112, 135, 136, 184,
Buchen, Philip 50–1 185, 187–8
Bush, George 80, 131–58, 159, 162, and Afghanistan, Soviet invasion of
163, 184, 186, 188, 193 76, 79, 81, 83, 123
and American exceptionalism 6, and American exceptionalism 56,
132–4, 143–4, 153–4, 155–8, 186 57, 58–9, 61–2, 67–8, 73–6, 82,
and Bosnia 152, 154, 157, 169 93, 185
and cautious approach to policy beliefs of 56, 61, 66–8
131, 134–6 and Cambodia 70–1
 Index 229

Carter, Jimmy – continued China 31, 33, 47, 49, 50, 63, 65, 70,
and Camp David agreements 71–2, 72, 82, 83, 156, 157, 162, 178
82, 83 Christopher, Warren 161, 162, 165, 169
and Carter Doctrine 81 ‘City upon a Hill’ 9, 15, 24, 59, 85, 89,
and Central America 68–70, 72, 82, 94, 130
83, 108 civil religion 8
and China 63, 65, 70–1, 72, 82, 83 Clark, William 91
and ‘crisis of confidence’ 56, 57, Clifton, Tony 148
72–6, 83–4, 87–8, 185 Clinton, Bill 159–82, 184, 186, 188, 191
and defence spending 95 and al-Qaeda 177, 181, 182
foreign policy of 56, 57–61, 68, and American exceptionalism 6,
76–7, 82–4 159, 160–2, 173, 180, 186
and human rights 61–8, 69, 70–2, and Bosnia 169–75, 177, 180, 181,
82–3, 108, 185 182, 186
and Iranian hostage crisis 76, and the end of the Cold War 6,
77–81, 83 159–60
and morality 56–7, 58–9, 62, 63–5, engagement and enlargement policy
66, 67, 68, 69, 70–2, 76–7, 132 160–2, 180–1, 186
and Panama Canal Treaties 68–70, foreign policy of 159–63, 170, 174,
72, 82, 83 180–2
and Ronald Reagan 87–8, 93–4, and Haiti 174, 180, 182
95, 122 impeachment of 15, 181
and Soviet Union 57, 58–9, 60, 61, ‘indispensable nation’ rhetoric
62, 64, 70, 73, 76, 79, 82, 83, 122 161–2, 167, 174–5, 186
and use of force 77–8, 79–81, 82 and Iraq 174, 177, 181, 182
and Vietnam legacy 56, 57–9, 74–5, and Kosovo 175–80, 181, 182, 186–7
103 and Monica Lewinsky affair 181
and Vietnam syndrome 58–9, 77–8, and Presidential Decision Directive
79–81, 105 (PDD) 25 165, 169
casualties, US and Rwanda 169, 175, 181, 182, 186
in Grenada 116 and Somalia 153, 154, 166–9, 170,
in Iranian hostage crisis rescue 172, 174, 180, 181, 182
attempt 78 and use of force 164–6, 167–80,
in Lebanon 110 181–2
in Libya bombing 120 and Vietnam 163–6, 174
in Mayaguez rescue 52–3 and Vietnam syndrome 165–6,
in Panama invasion 140 167–9, 171–5, 176–80, 181–2,
in Persian Gulf War 148 186–7
in Somalia 166–7 Coard, Bernard 112–13
in Vietnam War 25–6, 32, 33 Cohen, Eliot 160
Ceauşescu, Nicolae 65 Cohen, William 175
Central America 68–70, 72, 82, 83, 90, Colby, William 50
108–10, 120, 121, 124–7, 129–30, Cold War 21–5, 26
186 and American exceptionalism 6,
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 50, 21–5, 26, 37
55, 94–5, 126, 142 Carter administration and 58–9, 60
Chad 121 consensus 21, 23, 26, 38
Cheney, Richard 134 end of 6, 98, 102, 132, 135–6, 159
and Persian Gulf War 143 Reagan administration and 92,
and use of force 137, 147 94–102, 123, 128–9
230 Index

Committee on the Present Danger Ethiopia 77

85, 96 Europe 23, 108, 121, 129, 135
Common Sense (1776) 9–10 US as different from 8, 9–10
Congress, US 13, 27–8, 55, 62, 69, 81, exceptionalism, see American
109, 126, 134, 171–2, 180, 181 exceptionalism
and Persian Gulf War 144–5 exemplary strand, see American
and Somalia intervention 167–8 exceptionalism
and use of force 27–8, 37–8, 43, 46, expansionists 12–13
48, 51–2, 80, 111, 112, 138,
144–5, 167–8 Fahd, King 143
and the Vietnam War 27–8, 30, 32, Falklands War 117
43–6 First World War 13, 27
and the War Powers Act 37–8, 43, Fischer, Beth 100–2
51–2, 139 Ford, Gerald R. 40–55, 56–7, 60, 76,
Constitution of the United States 8, 10 89, 135, 184, 185, 187–8
containment 21, 22, 25, 135, 160 and American exceptionalism 41,
Contras 109, 124–7 42–3, 44, 45–6, 54, 55
Council on Foreign Relations 77, 121 and the ‘fall of Saigon’ 43–6, 47, 49,
Crèvecoeur, J. Hector St. John de 10 55, 187
‘crisis of confidence’ in the 1970s 17, foreign policy of 42–3, 54–5, 56–7, 60
36–7, 40–2, 53, 54, 56, 72–6, and Mayaguez incident 46–53, 185
83–4, 87–8 pardon of President Nixon 41–2, 43,
Croatia 152, 171 52, 55, 56
Cuba 24–5, 70, 77, 108, 109, 112–14, public approval of 41–2, 48
116, 118, 193 ‘time to heal’ rhetoric 40, 42–3, 44,
Czechoslovakia 83, 123 53, 54, 56, 103, 132, 185
and use of force 47, 53, 54, 55, 185
Daughtry, Herbert 113–14 and Vietnamese refugees 45–6, 55,
Day After, The 101 71, 187
Dayton Agreement 172, 173–4, 175 and Vietnam syndrome 46–7, 49–51,
de Tocqueville, Alexis 1, 15–16, 91 53, 54, 55, 105, 185
Declaration of Independence 7 Ford, Guillermo 138
Democracy in America (1835–1840) 1 Foreign Affairs 22
Deng Xiaoping 65, 71 Forsythe, David 65
Dobbs, Michael 179 Founding Fathers 10, 13, 59, 124, 125
Dogrin, Bob 148 Fousek, John 6, 21
Doolittle, Jerry 58–9 France 16, 25, 110, 120, 144
Dumbrell, John 160 Franklin, Benjamin 61
Freedman, Lawrence 149
Egypt 54, 71–2, 82 Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación
Eisenhower, Dwight D. 21, 27, 83 Nacional (FMLN) 108, 124–6
elections, US 15, 31, 55, 82, 88, 100, Friedersdorf, Max 48, 51
107, 153, 159, 163 Fulbright, William J. 28, 34–5
Eliot, Charles Norton 13
elite opinion 46, 95 Gaddafi, Muammar 119–21
and the Vietnam War 30–1 Gairy, Eric 112
Ellsberg, Daniel 32 Gallup Organisation, see public opinion
El Salvador 70, 90, 108–10, Garthoff, Raymond 98
124–5, 186 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
Endara, Guillermo 137–8, 139 (GATT) 162
 Index 231

Gephardt, Richard 136 Iran-Contra scandal 110, 126–7,

Germany 16, 132, 135–6, 144 129–30, 186
Gitlin, Todd 35 Iran–Iraq War 141, 142
globalization 60 Iraq 160, 163, 174, 181, 182, 193
Goldwater, Barry 126 and Persian Gulf War 141–52, 156,
Gorbachev, Mikhail 98, 100, 129, 157
135, 136 Isaacs, Arnold 104
Gore, Al 163 isolationism 12, 13–14, 20, 21,
Great Depression 27, 87, 184 42, 184
Greece 109 Israel 54, 71–2, 82, 110, 142, 174
Grenada Italy 110
US invasion of 112–19, 121–2, 129,
137, 140, 141, 186, 189 Jackson State University 32
Guantanamo Bay 193 Japan 14, 108, 121, 132, 144
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution 27–8 Jefferson, Thomas 10, 12, 61
Gulf War see Persian Gulf War Johnson, Lyndon B. 25, 27–8, 29,
30–1, 32, 34, 41, 83, 123, 169
Jordan 142
Haig, Alexander 91–2, 94, 95–6, 100,
Jordan, Hamilton 66
105, 108–9
Haiti 174, 180, 182
Kanter, Arnold 177
Hansen, Clifford 48
Kaplan, Robert D. 169
Hansen, George 80
Karadzic, Radovan 170
Helsinki Accords 55, 64
Karnow, Stanley 26
Hertzberg, Rick 67, 73
Karsh, Efraim 149
Hitler, Adolf 16, 143
Kazakhstan 174
Hobsbawm, Eric 7
Kendrick, Alexander 26
Hofstadter, Richard 7
Kennan, George 22, 160
Holbrooke, Richard 172, 173–4
Kennedy, Edward 76
Holtzman, Elizabeth 52
Kennedy, John F. 23, 24–5, 123
Hubbard, Carroll 48
Kent State University 32, 104
human rights
Khmer Rouge 47, 70–1
and Carter administration 61–8, 69,
see also Cambodia
70–2, 82–3, 108, 185
Kirkpatrick, Jeane 65, 125
in Vietnam War 28–9
Kissinger, Henry 60, 67, 80, 180–1
Hungary 65, 83
and Ford administration 42, 45, 46,
Hunt, Michael 2, 5, 17–18
49–51, 52, 56–57
Huntington, Samuel H. 7, 15
and Mayaguez incident 49–51, 52, 78
Hyland, William 165, 175
and use of force 46–7, 49–50
and the Vietnam War 31–2, 45
Indonesia 65 Korean War 23–4, 27, 106
interdependence 60 see also North Korea
Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Kosovo
Treaty 96 US intervention in 166, 175–80, 181,
internationalism 13–14, 21 182, 186, 189, 192
International Red Cross 193 Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) 175–6
Iran 65, 110, 126–7, 129–30, 141, Kurds 142, 150, 151
142, 186 Kuwait 141–52, 157
hostage crisis in 76, 77–81, 83, 85, Krasnaia Zvezda (Red Star) 95
89, 113, 130, 142, 189 Kristol, William 192
232 Index

Lake, Anthony 73, 160, 161, 162, 165 morality 36–7, 40–1
Laos 26, 32, 33, 191 and Carter administration 56–7,
Latin America, see Central America 58–9, 62, 63–5, 66, 67, 68, 69,
Lebanon 110–12, 119, 167, 186 70–2, 76–7, 82–3, 93
Lepgold, Joseph 4–5 and George Bush administration
Letters from an American Farmer 133, 138, 139, 142–4, 146, 153–4,
(1782) 9 155–8
Lewinsky, Monica 181 and Clinton administration 159,
Lewis, Anthony 53 170, 175–80
Libya and Reagan administration 89–91,
US bombing of 119–22, 137, 140, 92–4, 97, 98–9, 113, 114, 117,
141, 186, 189 118, 120, 124–7, 129–30
Life 20 and US foreign policy 5, 12, 22, 24,
Lincoln, Abraham 3, 7, 35, 40 26, 42, 45–6, 48–9, 50–1, 52, 53,
Lipset, Seymour Martin 3, 15 54–5, 56–7, 58–9, 62, 63–5, 66,
Lockerbie 121 67, 68, 69, 70–2, 76–7, 82–3,
Los Angeles Times 148 92–4, 97, 98–9, 113, 114, 117,
Lott, Trent 181 118, 120, 124–7, 133, 138, 139,
Luce, Henry 20 142–4, 146, 153–4, 155–8, 159,
Lundestad, Geir 120 170, 175–80, 187–8
and Vietnam War 27–9, 32, 33,
McCain, John 192 34–6, 45–6
McCarthy, Eugene 37 Moyers, Bill 29
McCarthy, Joseph 7 Mueller, John E. 30
MccGwire, Michael 176, 177 Muravchik, Joshua 65
McCormick, James 160, 181 My Lai 29, 104
McEvoy-Levy, Siobhán 6, 162
McFarlane, Robert C. 100, 101 nationalism, see American nationalism
McKeown, Timothy 4–5 National Liberation Front (NLF) 28,
McKinnon, Michael 168 30, 77
Manifest Destiny 6, 12, 13, 90 National Security Council (NSC) 22–3,
Mansfield, Mike 46, 52 42, 47, 49–51, 52, 101, 102,
Marshall Plan 23 134, 143
Marsh, John 51 nation building 23, 166–9, 172
Martin, Graham 45 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Mayaguez incident 46–53, 78, 185, 189 Organization) 63, 95–6, 129,
Melanson, Richard 77 170–2, 175–80
Mervin, David 131 Nau, Henry 89
Mexico 13 Nelson, Gaylord 80
Middle East 54, 61, 63, 65, 70, 71–2, Nessen, Ron 47, 51
76, 77–81, 82, 83, 85, 89, 110–12,
113, 119–22, 126–7, 129–30, New Jewel Movement 112
141–52, 174, 175 Newport, Frank 140
Miller, Linda 168 New Republic 37, 75, 132
Milosevic, Slobodan 175–6, 177 Newsweek 54, 136, 148
missionary strand, see American ‘New World Order’ 155–7
exceptionalism New York Times 32, 53, 107,
modernization theory 23 126, 151
Mitterrand, François 120 Nicaragua 65, 70, 90, 108–10, 120,
Mogadishu 166–7 121, 124–7, 186
 Index 233

Nixon, Richard M. 31–3, 34, 36, Poland 85, 122

41–2, 43, 50, 52, 55, 56, 60, 67, Pol Pot 70–1
70, 75, 80, 91 Potter, Paul 26
Noonan, Peggy 133 Powell, Colin L. 134
Noriega, Manuel 137–8, 140 and Panama invasion 138, 140, 141
North American Free Trade Agreement and Persian Gulf War 143, 146, 147,
(NAFTA) 162 148, 149
Northern Alliance 192 and use of force 106, 107, 137, 141,
Northern Ireland 175 147, 189
North Korea 49, 50, 160, 174 Powell Doctrine 106, 107, 137, 141,
see also Korean War 147, 164, 165–6, 189
NSC 68 22–3 power
nuclear war 54, 95–8, 101 credibility and resolve of US 25,
nuclear weapons 24, 54, 55, 60, 61, 63, 30–3, 37–9, 43, 44, 48, 49–51, 53,
64, 85, 90, 94–8, 100, 101, 128–9, 78, 83, 85, 92–3, 94–102, 104,
135, 142 107–8, 112, 117, 118–19, 120–2,
Nugent, Bob 148 123–4, 126, 128, 129, 132, 146,
162, 172
Office of Soviet Analysis (SOVA) 94–5 limits of US power 60, 63–4, 83, 111,
Olympic Games 81, 127 123, 128
O’Neill, Thomas P. (Tip) 70 Pravda 95, 117
Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)
(Persian Gulf War) 141–52 25 165, 169
Operation Just Cause (Panama invasion) public opinion 21, 45, 69, 78, 95, 109
138–41 confidence in the United States
Organization of American States 14–15, 36–7, 40–2, 53, 54, 72–3,
(OAS) 139 75, 76, 81, 84, 126, 130, 188
Organization of Eastern Caribbean and Grenada invasion 116–17
States (OECS) 114, 118 and Kosovo intervention 178,
Owen, Lord 172, 175 179–80
and Panama invasion 138, 139–40
Paine, Thomas 9–10, 61, 89 and Persian Gulf War 149–50, 152
Pakistan 166 presidential approval ratings 31, 41,
Palestinians 71–2, 110, 174 48, 75, 80–1, 84, 121, 126–7, 130,
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 140, 150, 180
72, 110 and Somalia intervention 153–4,
Panama 168, 179
Panama Canal Treaties 68–70, 72, on the use of force 48, 53, 80, 111,
82, 83, 139 112, 116–17, 121, 138, 139–40,
US invasion of 137–41, 147, 156, 149–50, 152, 153–4, 168, 178,
168, 186, 189 179–80, 181, 192
Panama Defense Force (PDF) 137–40 and Vietnam War 30–1, 32, 45, 121
Pan Am Flight 103 121 see also elite opinion
‘Peace through strength’ strategy 92–3, Pueblo, USS 49
94–102, 123, 129
Pearl Harbor 14, 28 Quayle, Dan 163
Persian Gulf War 141–52, 154, 155–6,
157, 186, 189, 192 Rabin, Yitzhak 174
and Vietnam syndrome 145, 146–52 Rafshoon, Jerry 73, 74
Philippine–American War 12–13, 188 Ramstad, Jim 167–8
234 Index

Rather, Dan 177 and reversal of anti-Soviet policy

Reagan Doctrine 124 99–102, 122–4, 129
Reagan, Nancy 100 and SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative)
Reagan, Ronald 69, 81, 84, 85–130, 97–8, 129
131–4, 136, 184, 185–6, 187–8 and Second World War 86
and American exceptionalism 85–7, and South Korean Airlines flight
88, 89–91, 92–4, 97–8, 105, KAL 007 99, 101, 122–3, 129
115–16, 117, 118, 124–7, 129–30, and Soviet Union 85, 90, 92,
185–6 94–102, 108, 112–14, 115,
and arms build-up 94–8, 99, 101, 117–18, 121, 122–4, 128–9, 185
185 and terrorism 110, 112, 119–22,
and arms control 96, 97, 98, 100, 126–7
101, 128–9 and use of force 92, 100, 104–8,
and Central America 90, 108–10, 110–22, 185
120, 121, 124–7, 129–30, 186 and US power, strength and resolve
and ‘city on a hill’ rhetoric 85, 89, 85, 92–3, 94–102, 104, 107–8,
94, 130 117, 118–19, 120–2, 123–4, 126,
and Cold War 92–3, 94–102, 123, 128, 129, 185–6
128–9 and Vietnam legacy 92, 103–4
and the ‘crisis of confidence’ 87–8, and Vietnam syndrome 104–9,
185 110–12, 113–19, 120–2, 128
and Cuba 108, 109, 112–14, 116 view of the United States 89–91, 98–9
disputes among foreign policy team Rice, Condoleeza 190
of 91, 106–8, 111, 114, 118, 135 Rockefeller, Nelson 49–50, 52
and economic recovery 128, 129 Romania 65
and El Salvador 90, 108–10, 124–5 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 14, 28, 130
and end of the Cold War 98, 102 Rotberg, Robert 121
‘evil empire’ rhetoric of 98–100, 101, Roth, Bill 145
122–4, 129 Rowan, Roy 45
foreign policy of 89–94 Rumsfeld, Donald 192
and George Bush 131, 132–4 Russia 174, 181
and Grenada invasion 112–19, Rwanda 169, 175, 181, 182, 186
121–2, 129, 186 Ryan, David 16, 17
and Iran–Contra 110, 126–7,
129–30, 186 Sadat, Anwar 72
and Iranian hostage crisis 85, 89, Saddam Hussein 141–52, 174
113 Safire, William 107
and Jimmy Carter 87–8, 93–4 Saigon, ‘fall’ of 33, 43–6, 47, 49, 55, 187
and Lebanon 110–12, 119, 167, 186 SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation
and Libya 119–22, 186 Treaty II) 54, 55, 64, 81
and Mikhail Gorbachev 98, 100, 129 Sandinistas 108–10, 124–6
and Nicaragua 90, 108–110, 120, Sarajevo 170, 171
121, 124–7 Saudi Arabia 141, 142, 143, 146, 147
and nuclear weapons 85, 90, 94–8, Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. 169
100, 101, 128–9 Schlesinger, James 50
and ‘peace through strength’ strategy Schwarzkopf, H. Norman 147
92–3, 94–102, 123, 129 Scowcroft, Brent 134, 155
and public opinion 111, 112, and Panama invasion 140
116–17, 121, 126–7, 130, 180 and Persian Gulf War 143, 149, 150–1
rhetoric versus reality 122–7 and use of force 136–7
 Index 235

SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) Spanish–American War 12–13, 27, 28,

97–8, 129 36, 188
SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) Speakes, Larry 106–7, 120–1
26, 35 Srebrenica 171
SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Statue of Liberty 8, 45, 127
Organization) 27 Stephanson, Anders 6, 21
Second World War 14, 20–1, 28, 86 Stewart, William 45
September 11, 2001 1, 183, 191, Stockman, David 35
192, 193 Stratton, Richard 45
Serbia 152, 169–80, 182 Sudan 121, 181
Shafer, Byron 3 Sunday Times 99
Shalikashvili, John M. 165–6 Supreme Court, US 15
Shamir, Yitzhak 86 Syria 110
Shapp, Milton 36
Shias 150, 151 Taiwan 70
Shultz, George P. 91, 100, 127 Talbott, Strobe 165, 173
dispute with Caspar Weinberger 91, Taliban 192–3
106–8, 111, 114, 118 terrorism 1, 110, 112, 119–21, 126–7,
and Grenada invasion 114–15, 177, 181, 182, 183, 191–3
117, 118 Thailand 71
and Libya bombing 120–1 Thatcher, Margaret 117, 120
and use of force 106–8, 111, 114–15, Tiananmen Square 156, 157
117, 118 Timberg, Robert 104
Sidey, Hugh 54 Time 37, 45, 75, 76, 80
Simon, Paul 80 Times, The 45
Sinai Accords 54 Torrijos, Omar 69
Slovenia 152 Tower, John 116, 134
Smith, Gaddis 72, 108 Trilateral Commission 57
Somalia Tripoli 119–21
US intervention in 152, 153–4, 163, Truman Doctrine 21–2, 24, 109
166–9, 170, 172, 174, 179, 180, Truman, Harry S 7, 21–2, 23–4
181, 182, 187, 189 Turkey 109
Somoza, Anastasio 65, 108 Turner, Stansfield 94
South Africa 65
South Korean Airlines flight KAL 007 Uganda 65
99, 101, 122–3, 129 Ukraine 174
Soviet Union 21, 22, 24–5, 31, 33 unilateralism 12, 21, 156–7
and Afghanistan 76, 79, 81, 83, 85, United Nations 27, 50, 63, 64, 71, 89,
115, 122, 123, 124 112, 125, 139, 155, 156, 157, 164–5,
and Carter administration 57, 58–59, 170–1, 181
60, 61, 62, 64, 70, 73, 76, 79, 82, and Persian Gulf War 141,
83 144, 150
and Ford administration 49, 50, 54, and Somalia intervention 153, 154,
55 166–9
and George Bush administration use of force
135–6, 144 Afghanistan 192–3
and Reagan administration 85, 90, Bosnia 169–75
92, 94–102, 108, 112, and Carter administration 57–9,
115, 117–18, 121, 122–4, 77–8, 79–81, 82
128–9, 185 and Central America 108–10
236 Index

use of force – continued 120–2, 123–4, 126, 128, 129, 132,

and Clinton administration 164–6, 146, 162, 172
167–80, 181–2 limits of US power 60, 63–4, 83, 111,
and George Bush administration 118–19, 123, 128, 182, 190
136–54 and Post-Cold War era 6, 132, 141,
and George W. Bush administration 155–7, 159–60, 174–5
191–3 and Post-Vietnam era 17, 42–3, 47,
Grenada invasion 112–19 54–5, 57–61, 128, 174–5, 184–91
Iranian hostage crisis rescue attempt US leadership in world affairs 11–14,
78–81 21–3, 31, 34, 42, 55, 60, 61,
Korean War 23–4 156–7, 161–2, 169, 173–5
Kosovo 175–80 see also American exceptionalism,
Lebanon 110–12 morality
Libya bombing 119–22
Mayaguez incident 46–53, 54, 55 Vance, Cyrus R. 73, 172
Panama invasion 137–41 and American exceptionalism 59
Persian Gulf War 141–52 and human rights policy 63
Powell Doctrine 106, 107, 137, 141, and Iranian hostage crisis 78
164, 165–6 and use of force 57–8, 77–8
Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) opinion of Jimmy Carter 67, 68
25 165 and Zbigniew Brzezinski 57–8, 77–8
public opinion on 48, 53 Vessey, John 114–15
and Reagan administration 92, 100, Vietnam 70–1, 164–6, 174
104–8, 110–22, 128 see also Vietnamese refugees; Vietnam,
Somalia intervention 152, 153–4, legacy of; Vietnam syndrome;
166–9 Vietnam
Spanish–American War 12–13, 28 Veterans Memorial; Vietnam War
and US Congress 27–8, 37–8, 46, Vietnamese refugees 45–6, 55,
48–9, 51–2 71, 187
Vietnam War 25–6 Vietnam, legacy of 56, 72–3
War Powers Act 37–8, 43, and American exceptionalism 2,
51–2, 139 26, 33–9, 40–1, 44, 45–6, 57,
Weinberger Doctrine 106–8, 58–9, 74–5
118–19, 136, 137 and Bill Clinton 163–6
see also Vietnam syndrome and Ronald Reagan 92, 103–8,
US foreign policy 126, 130
benign motives of 11–14, 20, 21, and US foreign policy 42–3, 57–9
24, 25, 26, 27–9, 34–6, 42, 45–6, see also Vietnam syndrome
48–9, 50–1, 52, 54–5, 56–7, Vietnam syndrome 19, 38–9, 104–8,
58–60, 61, 62, 63–5, 66, 67, 68, 188–91
69, 70–2, 76–7, 82–3, 89–91, and Afghanistan 192–3
92–4, 97, 98–9, 102, 105, 113, and American exceptionalism 19,
114, 115–16, 117, 120, 124–7, 58–9, 188–91
129–30, 133, 138, 139, 142–4, and Bosnia 152, 154, 171–5
146, 150, 153–4, 156–8, 160–2, and Carter administration 58–9,
170, 175–80, 187–8 77–8, 79–81
credibility and resolve of US power and Central America 108–10
25, 30–3, 37–9, 43, 44, 48, 49–51, and Clinton administration
53, 54, 58, 78, 83, 85, 92, 94–102, 164–6, 167–9, 171–5, 176–80,
104–5, 107–8, 112, 117, 118–19, 181–2, 186–7
 Index 237

Vietnam syndrome – continued War on Terror 191–3

and Ford administration 46–7, War Powers Act 37–8, 43, 51–2, 139
49–51, 53, 54, 55 Washington, George 9, 10, 12,
and George Bush administration 61, 173
136–7, 138–9, 140–1, 145, Washington Post 101, 148, 176, 177,
146–54, 157 179, 182
and Grenada invasion 115–16, 121–2 Watergate 2, 17, 33, 36–7, 40, 41–2,
and Kosovo 174–80 56, 72–3
and Lebanon 110–12 weapons of mass destruction 135,
and Libya bombing 120–2 142, 148
and Panama invasion 138–9, see also nuclear weapons
140–1, 168 Weinberg, Albert 12
and Persian Gulf War 145, 146–52 Weinberger, Caspar W. 91, 94
Powell Doctrine 106, 107, 137, 141, dispute with George Shultz 91,
147, 164, 165–6, 189 106–8, 111, 114, 118–19
Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) and Grenada invasion 114–16,
25 165 118–19
and Reagan administration 92, and Libya bombing 119
104–12, 113–19, 120–1, 128 and use of force 106–8, 111, 114–15,
and Somalia intervention 167–9 118–19
Weinberger Doctrine 106–8, 118–19, Weinberger Doctrine 106–8, 118–19,
136, 137, 189 136, 137, 189
Vietnam Veterans Memorial 26, 103 Westmoreland, William 30
Vietnam War 17, 25–36, 41, 43–6, Whitcomb, Roger 5, 8
55, 191 Wills, Gary 87
anti-war movement 27, 35, 163 Wilson, Woodrow 13
atrocities in 28–9, 32 Winthrop, John 9, 15, 89, 94
and Bill Clinton 163 Wirthlin, Richard 100
casualties 25–6, 32, 33 Woodward, Bob 147
‘fall of Saigon’ 33, 43–6, 47, 49, 55 World Court 125–6
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution 27–8
legality of 27–9, 32, 33, 50
Yankelovich, Daniel 37
morality of 27–9, 32, 33, 34–6
Yeltsin, Boris 174
‘Peace with honor’ 31–3, 41
Yemen 142
Tet offensive 29, 30–1
Yugoslavia 152, 169–80
von Hippel, Karin 167, 168

Walker, Martin 162–3, 170 Zaire 65

Wall Street Journal 108, 169 Zepa 171