The Rockets' Red Glare: When America Goes to War: The Presidents and the People

In this probing, comprehensive survey of the role of public opinion in shaping U.S. foreign policy, Barnet ( Global Reach ) traces the relationship of government to the governed through 200 years with special attention to domestic reaction to America's wars. The author sheds light on President Franklin Roosevelt's extraordinary sensitivity to public opinion of his conduct during the months preceding Pearl Harbor, and elucidates President Johnson's misreading of it before the Tet Offensive. Barnet analyzes the dramatic increase in the power of public opinion in the nuclear age, culminating in the Reagan administration's successful manipulation of it. He argues, however, that the increasingly frantic effort to ``sell American foreign policy to Americans'' has produced a backlash--an electorate that is becoming dangerously depoliticized and shock-proof. (Feb.)