The President's Echo System... How foreign policy is marketed to Americans

A careful analysis of the propaganda partnerships between US presidents and private organizations that fueled the Cold War and paved the way for the War on Terror. How do US presidents stimulate public support for their foreign policy agendas, which often start out at odds with public opinion? "The President's Echo System" details how successive administrations have collaborated with outside groups to spread ideas initially rejected by voters. Chad Levinson shows how these collaborations shaped all of the most important American foreign policy programs of the past century, from participation in World War II and the founding of the United Nations, to the Vietnam and Iraq wars. The relationship between special interests and government officials is typically understood to be coercive, with non-state actors using their wealth and media influence to pressure civil society leaders. But Levinson, in his opinion, contradicts this prevailing concept, as he believes that these relationships are in fact symbiotic. Administrations of both parties have played pivotal roles in developing private organizations that share their foreign policy priorities, creating an environment of influence that persists long after a president's term ends. Drawing on extensive archival research, Levinson highlights how nongovernmental partnerships, emerging during the interwar period and evolving throughout the Cold War, influenced American national security discourse during the euphoria of the 1990s, and how they ultimately paved the way for the Global War on Terror. Today, in an era in which social media gives the White House an enormous ability to engage in collaborative propaganda with private actors, The President's Echo System is an essential reference for anyone who wants to understand consensus formation in American foreign policy.