Reagan's War Stories examines the relationship between Ronald
Reagan, the public and popular culture. From an overview of
Reagan's youth and the pulp fiction he consumed, we get a sense of
the future president's good/evil outlook. Carrying that over into
Reagan's reading and choices as president, Griffin situates
narrative at the center of Reagan's political formation and
leadership providing a compelling account of both Reagan's life,
his presidency, and a lens into non-traditional strategy
formulation. Author Ben Griffin tells three stories about an
American president who ushered in the end of the Cold War. A survey
of Reagan's youth and the fiction he consumed and created as an
announcer and actor, reveals how the future president's worldview
developed. A look at the rise of fiction and popular culture rife
with pro-Americanism in the 1980s details a uniquely symbiotic
relationship between the chief executive and popular culture in
framing the Cold War as a struggle with an "Evil Empire" in the
Soviet Union. Finally, Griffin outlines how presidential
personality and reading preferences shaped President Reagan's
pursuit of the "Star Wars" initiative and belief in the
transformative combination of freedom and technology. Griffin
demonstrates that novels by Tom Clancy, Louis L'Amour, and science
fiction influenced Reagan's view of 1980s geopolitics. His
identification with fiction led Ronald Reagan to view European Cold
War issues with more empathy but harmed the president's
policymaking when the narrowness of his reading led him to apply a
white-hat/black-hat framework that did not match the reality of
conflict in Latin America. Reagan treated fictional portrayals
seriously, believing they shaped public views and offered valid
ways to think through geo-political issues. Seeking to shape the
reading habits of the public, his administration sought to
highlight authors who shared his worldview like Tom Clancy, Louis
L'Amour, and Allen Drury over other popular writers like Robert
Ludlum and John Le Carre who portrayed the Cold War in less stark
moral terms. The administration's favored popular authors in turn
intentionally incorporated Reagan-era policies into their work to
advocate for them through fiction, thus reaching a broader audience
than via official government releases and speeches. Showing how
Reagan used narrative as both a consumer and a communicator,
Griffin notes that Reagan identified with certain stories and they
shaped him as a political leader and later and influenced his
approach to complex issues. When handled deftly, incorporating
fiction created a common language across the administration and
provided a way to convey messages to the masses in a memorable
fashion.
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