Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History Dwight Eisenhower And 1950s Political Advertising 20240714

This idea, however, is a myth and its a political construction. Idea the 1950s in fact was a time is wrought with racial discrimination, conflicts, intense political and social pressures to conform to a suburban ideal that imposed gender hierarchies and mandated heterosexuality in the law. L an it was a time in which that anticommunism targeted the e liberal reform impulses of the new deal and frequently anti anticommunists took away civild liberties. And these are all different areas of political pressures inl terms of enforcing certain ideals and resisting against of those that we will look at next week. Politica but i like ike as a political construct shifted attention awa, from those divisions and it created a sense of consensus. In many ways again this is political construction. And at the root of it was a very innovative and transformative r Marketing Campaign that transformed a military hero into a political celebrity. Matr and he used that attention to win the presidency. Often we think of john f. Pr kennedy or Ronald Reagan as es ushering in the Television Presidency but in fact it was Dwight Eisenhower and this is what we are going to look at today. Forw Dwight Eisenhower brought several important developments to the modern american presidency through his s leadership style and his today. Organizational approach. In doing this he built on a lot of the transformations weve already looked at this semesterc for example Franklin Roosevelt launched the executive office of the presidency. And last week we looked at how harry truman expanded it with the National Security state. Dwight eisenhower, however, formalized it. He ran his office very much like he did the military. W tended i the bureaucracy became a very entrenched and well focused and executed component of the did th american presidency under eisenhower. For example, he had weekly cabinet meetings and he formed c the office of congressional nhor liaison so he could have a formal link to the legislative process. Of and this was especially important because throughout th 1950s the Democratic Party controlled congress. So eisenhower recognized that to get things done he needed to have a really smooth operation o in terms of links with congress. But he also brought this organizational focus to this shifting media environment and transformed the white house into a production studio. And to do that he worked very f closely with hollywood figures and madison avenue Television Executives and companies to wit navigate the new mass medium of television that ultimately really transformed american new, political communication during mae 1950s. S. So this postworld war ii era is really a key moment to politic understand the rise of entertainment, advertising, television and hollywood in hollican politics because television really does drastically change the political scene during the 1950s. So the questions that i want us to think about today as we study this particular period are how does television change day leadership styles . How does it change strategies of political communication and qualifications needed to succeed politically . Leadersh and the key question that were going to come back to at the end of class is does television wha revolutionize the american presidency, or does it build onf trends that are already in place . So to get at that question we i need to start by thinking about what are the trends that are already in place. On questi does television launch a inking significant break in terms of leadership strategies and communication strategies. So what trends are already in place before the launch of re th television in the 1950s . What does Theodore Roosevelt bring to the presidency . Theodore roosevelt brought e like increased media connectionn at the beginning of the 20th century to start formalizing the process of like the executive office and the media. Cent excellent. Didnt he also setup the west wing as a sort of source to have the press like within the white house in order to have a connection with them as well . Yes. In th and again these are key in terms of he valued the press. He saw the press is as an asset as an asset, something he wanted to capitalize on their place to control and help shape Public Opinion. Excellent. Capita he also had the fireside and chats, so there was already thi idea of there is this personalized president that if every person has a radio in chats,ther, they can listen to him and its like hes speaking to them using rhetoric easy to understand, not super at is complicated political jargon. So Franklin Roosevelt really brings in this idea of a fireside chat. So Theodore Roosevelt uses the presidency as a bully pulpit. He creates heez relationships with journalists and again uses Public Opinion to launch and advocate for a very specific policy. Franklin roosevelt takes this as step further. Pucate foitalizes on radio and uses that to create an intimate connection with the american public. And im going to play you a quick clip just to give you a sense of what this sounded like. Again, thinking about if you ab were a listener, you were tuning into your radio during the 1930s to listen to your president , this would have been what you heard. A what ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States. My friends, i want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking. I the mechanics of banking,co more particularly with the mpar overwhelming majority of you who use banks for the making of thet products and the drawing of change. Hemajority what did he do just in that very simple opening . Ma he definitely personalizes the chat. He uses i, you, we, and he ses , creates this personal link between the presidency and the people so that they feel like hes on their side and that the also have a place in this huge bureaucratic thing that he has begun to create. E absolutely. Personalizing the presidency, that is so key. Te. For those of you who looked at a lot of critics of new deal programs how does he bypass that with the radio . You pr someone doesnt agree with a particular program what is he able to do with radio . Hes able to directly appeal to the American People with the radio and bypass like say newspapers that have editorial slants against new deal policies and just to work around old institutions that were against him. Cies absolutely. Thats really key. Thinking about the power that this gives. It creates that personal relationship, that intimacy between the president and an individual in their home. Givethen it also allows him to to challenge the narrative. S that overwhelmingly at this time people got their information and newspapers. And many newspaper editors were against the new deal. Overwhelmingly at this time newspapers were conservative, ey more critical of roosevelts l policies so the radio becomes a new opportunity to connect oppot directly to audiences. And if you recall, its not just radio that he uses. He also used theaters and motio pictures to sell certain programs. He capitalized on the news reele that would have been shown at the beginning of a Motion Picture feature. Programs but he also worked with a sh variety of different studios inn hollywood to create production shorts like this one which varit promoted the National Recovery administration. Erent dministr you and you and you youve got a president now. And yo you and you put shoulders to the plow, he gave us what we asked for now pay him back somehow d step out in front and give a h man a job he bore the brunt now bear with the president and give a man a job makes the old heart proud, you take this message straight from the president and give a man a job you look like a banker. Ight who drives your car . I drive it myself. Look have a cigar. Keep your cigar and hire a ha chauffeur. Becoming a rom loafer. You look like ad grocer. No, sir, my job is extermination. You must keep each a nice weeks vacation. And ill need more men to kill the rats. Va he wants you to hire a crowd. You hang a sign that means no rats allowed. Whats the matter with you . Im a very sick woman. Oh, a hypocondriac. Or any kind of an itis that wil. Delight us. In that way, you will help end employment. Listen to me, everybody, step up and get back out front and give a man a job. He wore the brunt, you know that and i know that, so step up and give a man a job. Ill tell you and when i do itll give your heart a start. You take this message straight from the president and give a d man a job. So what does this do thats different from the fireside chats . Go ahead, brent. It turns president ial policy into an entertainment product. Absolutely. Its very much like the beginning of the whole concept of marketing. Absolutely. Excellent. Excellent. I was going to say it takes its no longer the g of dent advocating for himself but its normal people sa advocating for the president es that normal people would want the president and that they are very much for his policies and that he has caused all of this economic boom and all of wo these all this prosperity. Within the country. Has yeah, so the focus the ri hero of this story is Franklin Roosevelt. Right, hes featured at the end, his portrait. But he has a variety of other people who are helping sell ory this. A comedian in this capacity, a variety of different celebritie come out for Franklin Roosevelt to do this. Sell radio spokesmen and radio in th personalities all are selling the president for him. So again a different kind of Production Team in terms of selling a particular policy. Excellent. Adam . Erent ki it kind of creates the soundf bite. Ar po so if you can take different snippets of what the guy was saying like give back to the president or give a man a job, those are easy to remember jingles, so you could put thosei into some sort of radio snippets advertisement or, you know, that just appeals to a more general audience. At guy ismember theyre going to remember that message whether or not they you heard the whole song or not or whether or not they heard abouti all the different ways they can help. Ey wimess theyre going to remember give a man a job. Have absolutely, the slogan. Or so again bringing some of these features, the advertising at thy this time, and hollywood, bringing them into politics to sell particular policies. These and the only reason you will no be humming give a man a job later this day is because youre going to hum the i like ike one because its a lot catch yr. Catchier. Lucas . I thought it was interesting holding the president up but using it as a selling point. In this case it was actually getting the people involved in a specific policy so its actuallt helping the common man or the t middle class man to come out and without you we cant do this, but with you you can be part of this grander thing thats helping all americans. D with and that is really key as well when we think about media r and new media and the presidency. Because really effective president s are able to use new media to win elections, but the also to govern. To use it as a tool to sell their agenda as well. New and making that transition from communication on the campaign trail to communication once in office is really key. And this is why what Dwight Eisenhower does with television is also really important becaus he follows that trajectory. In term of using new media to win an election and then reshape how he governs and how he sets the agenda as lucas pointed out. Go, again, we see a lot of the new possibilities in terms of preventing an agenda, shaping Public Opinion and promoting a agais, in y that comes with radio and Motion Pictures. So what about television . Does television bring something fundamentally new to american te politics and to the american presidency . I want to throw a couple of numbers out because i think it really conveys how dramatically . Television grew and reshaped american politics. In 1949 only 172,000 Television Sets had sold. On gre that number jumped to over 52 sh million by 1953. This is an incredibly dramatic growth of a new technology that forced politicians to grapple with presenting themselves and i their policies to voters through tv screens rather than newspape articles, Radio Broadcasts or ve even these Motion Picture rath shorts. Even and one of the key things to think about is that this growth of a new technology caused tremendous anxiety and concern. And its really important to understand that this is postworld war ii, that it war becomes so powerful. There was deep concern over the manipulative power of propaganda at this time. And the ways it could be used to undermine democracy and to promote totalitarian governments. After all Adolph Hitler and theh nazi party in germany had a very effective propaganda machine. It its how they were able to consolidate power by limiting information over new medias. Y a so too did Joseph Stalin in the soviet union. And so these concerns about the manipulative power of the new cs media and even old media, Motion Pictures in particular, were really at the core of a lot of anticommunist investigations particularly the ones that even featured the Motion Picture of industry in 1947. The central question that was debated in the halls of congress as a variety of actors came to testify about their political activity was were they using entertainment, were they using their celebrity for undemocratic purposes. Quote, glamour is appealing, the communists have made shrewd in c excellent use of it for their purpose. They are trying to bedazzle audiences with celebrity. Ealing. And so this is a question that pervaded national politics. Is entertainment media, Motion Pictures and this new media of television that people werent quite sure what to do with, is this going to undermine democracy . Does it focus more attention on entertainment, and can it be used as a way to advance whats . Communism . Wa these were central questions that people had. Y so these fears of entertainment and propaganda and manipulation are really important to ars understand when we see the different ways that politiciansn grappled with television. D th some of them embraced television and the opportunities that it fn had to offer, but overwhelmingly in the 1950s they were very wary of it. In th and the argument that we dont want to manipulate others by thry wary advertising, sales advertising in madison avenue, that really dominated Public Discourse during the 1950s. For example, the democratic nominee for the presidency in o 1952 and 1956 stevenson looked c very disdainfully on the mediumi that sold president s as commodities. Quote, the idea you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal i think is the ultimate intigdy to in dignity to the democratic process argued d stevenson. He wanted to use this new medium to perhaps expand his message, to deliver longer speeches but not to use any of those slick sale techniques that madison avenue executives were using to sell cereal. Sales he wanted to use this new medium to perhaps expand the message that he was already delivering to audiences. And so what he did during the 1952 election is that he did allow some advertisers to create elme catchy jingles for him but he refused to be a part of that production. He said if you want to do that like the way we did with radio thats fine but im not going to appear in the short advertisement. O, bu theres no way i can talk about a policy in 30 seconds. T go so instead Adlai Stevenson worked with the democratic ine National Committee and purchased longer chunks of time. So an hour perhaps where he would then go in front of a tv , camera and deliver a long speech about a particular policy. He well, if youre going to y. Purchase an hour of tv time and you have a limited budget when will that time be . And he thought when can you afford that time, right . Whenever its cheapest. Absolutely. Which would probably be late at night when its not prime time. Ys . Exactly. So when Adlai Stevenson did appear on tv it was late at r ia night, when the only people watching were perhaps those people who were committed democrats that wanted to watch what stevenson had to say. So thats only time he appeared in these purchased periods on television. And he had his Advertising Team make ads again that reflected radio strategy. Im going to show you two of them and i want you to think rt about how these are perhaps reminiscent of somethinger youd hear over the radio than something youd see on tv. Thet old mcdonald had a farm back in 31 just broken down farmlank everywhere in farmer mack knows what to do, election day of 52 to look for Adlai Stevenson with a vote vote here, a vote for stephenson everywhere, well if its good for mack you see its good for you and good for me vote stevenson today loves all right, one more and well discuss. One ike. Bob. Ike. Bob. Im so glad were friends again, bob. Yes, ike, we agree on everything. Lets never separate again, bob. Never again, ike. Bob. Ike. Bob. Ike. Will ike and bob really live happily ever after . Is the white house big enough willboth of them . Stay tuned for a musical interlude. Ho reuben reuben, i been thinking,t ikeay t and bob think alike. With the general in the white house, who will give the orders, bob or ike. Ive lets vote for adlai and john. So bob refers to robert taft who was the other contender for the presidency in the Republican Party. And he was the more conservative candidate. Bob and eisenhower was promoted at this time as the moderate republican. As th and so that, you know, makes a particular argument about their relationship. So what did you notice about these two commercials . Carolyn . All the visuals were merely like ornamentation, like you mentioned earlier these could have just been played over the radio and honestly it would have had the same effectiveness and also it doesnt really feature any of the candidates at all, n like facial so people watching it might not really make that rhetorical connection. Excellent. This might just be looking at things from like a modern lens, but theyre not very good. Like, from the base standpoint of getting a stance across we dont know who farmer mack is. We dont know what caused his farm to be bad and how voting for stevenson would fix that bad problem, and that was a bigger problem with the first one than the second one. Hoson woul the second one just doesnt go anywhere. Its 30 seconds of can i change the channel to see literally an other political advertisement especially that really catchy i like ike one that seems to be going around that my friends are talking about. T. Change l excellent. Espeell, its a lot like what you see today where its like h slander campaigns. Youre getting nothing of yours across, just bashing everything what they do. Like talk nothing about you, just them. Just talk about all the negatives. And thats whats really see interesting is you do see that do. Tive approach of lets critique eisenhower and critique the Republican Party. Thing is so that negative aspect is absolutely there. Rather than a positive message about why you should vote for se the democratic candidates. Ve it seemed the commercials were really just preaching to the choir because the first one was just saying adlai is good for farmers but doesnt say how. So itd seem like the only people who would agree with that are people familiar with his wa farming policies. And in the second one trying to compare ike and bob it doesnt explain why. O would theyre going to see that have their beliefs either ignored or offended. Absolutely. And i think thats really important too when you think about the Democratic Party at ely. Time, is that media is is a side component. Its clearly not a priority. At for stevenson, for the democratic National Committee se at this particular time. Why . Where is the strength of the Democratic Party at this time . How do they win elections . Itd be like remnants of atii ections . Be roosevelts coalition from the 1930s and ans something else, the first of advertisement especially pointed out is look back to 1931. Theyre like look 20 years ago when republicans did bad things. I mean i feel like in the moder era 20 years ago is a completely different environment than now, so its really trying to harken back to arguments theyve been making for the last two decades. Excellent. 20 years kayla. I was going to say you can cae the contrast between the e Democratic Party and theyre cot continually asking people to look back at what weve done, not even what stevenson has done necessarily but what other th democrats have done and linkinga the party together, thats the only thing they share because hes a democrat, he will be as successful as past democrats whereas with ikes campaign it was very much looking towards p. The future and not well, because they didnt really have a great past in recent years to, look back to that they would want to advertise. The futu so they had to push past that and you can see that contrast here. In r and also a lack of prioritizing media and honestly theres no se creativity here, which would re make sense because they didnt prioritize it, and that definitely hurt them in this. And i think thats really important to think about, the a Democratic Party had been in i office for 20 years. That is long time to control the white house. And they had done so in a way that built a coalition with very ntrol specific new deal programs that gave benefits to voters that brought workers and farmers into that Democratic Coalition with all of the programs that weve looked at. Were and so they were relying on those structures as economic incentives to bring voters to the polls. They werent worried about getting new voters. They just wanted to capitalize on the coalition that they had mobilized for the last 20 years. So in many ways theyre using the same strategies in terms of the rhetoric and who theyre appealing to turn out to the terms re on the subject of lack of creativity one thing i just realized is that both of those ads used already commonly known. Commonly accepted meters and musical structures that they ig just twisted slightly. E th there really was no creativity at all. They tried to build on familiarity rather than bringing something new and innovative. So again i think its really brportant to kind of think about that theres no one way that is predetermined of how american politicians will turn to a new medium. Rather, there are a lot of different strategies at play. And even Dwight Eisenhower was really reluctant to embrace a more madison avenue driven style and nothing really exposes the initial thinking of Dwight Eisenhower like his announcement speech, when he was announcing h his candidacy inow abilene, kansas, and he turns out to a park in abilene, it is rainy, stormy, and everyone tells him l weve got Television Cameras set up, you need to go into this barn to deliver your address to tv audiences across the country. And he says absolutely not. I am going to talk to my supporters here. And he was proud that they cameo out to support him and he wanted to connect to the audience thatr was inou frontd of him. So he endured the wind and the rain and all of this was captured on a camera. Endure and here is what it looked like. 20odd years ago, i left abilene. S ago, since then ive seen demonstrated in our own land and in far corners of the earth, on battlefields and around Council Tables in cool scholhouse and s factually, the indominable and scirit of americans. Looking back on the american g m record through these years, i gained personal inspiration andd renewed devotion to america. There is nothing before us that can afright or defeat a people o who in oneth mans lifetime hav accomplished so much. Ladies and gentlemen, i believe we can have peace with honor, reasonable security with national solvency. I believe in the future of the United States of america. What did you notice in here . What captured your attention . N . Kayla . Kayl you muted this and yeah, i think if you muted this, you would think that hes out at war somewhere speaking to his troops. I dont know. Maybe its because we know hes a war general, but the wind andg the rain and his hair flying everywhere and all of that. And he has like a very grimaceda expression. War general, ve which i think is good for him. Thats what he was running on. Excellent. D anyone know eisenhower actually had hair e until you s this because you see his hair blowing in the wind. Later in the speech it starts . Raining harder. He cant really see through his glasses. Hes struggling with his glasses reading the speech. Rainin Robert Montgomery at this time s is a hollywood actor and a republican. And heherobe watched this speec he was horrified. He recounts how he immediately picks up the phone, called the e Republican Party and said, let me work on your campaign with you because you are really missing an opportunity to shift from this idea of a military hero and emphasize that you are a political leader. That you want to be president and you can command not just audiences in front of you but audiences across the country. And so Robert Montgomery asked,r can i work. On your campaign, he was not the only one. Dwight eisenhower was friends with a lot of executives in new york city that worked on madison avenue advertising executives. And they also worked very dill gently with him to revamp his media strategy. He was originally very resistant to this. He did not want to make television such a priority in v his campaign. Th but over and over again, figures like Robert Montgomery and advertising executives like Rosser Reeves emphasized that you need to take television rees seriously. Seeeeu need to that you can get something across. Something meaningful across to viewers by embracing some of these production tactics. And so this is what his Campaign Look Like that was very different from Adlai Stevenson. P he had this very catchy i like ike and ike for president spot that ill show you in a moment. But then he also had a very wil innovative series ofsh campaign spots called eisenhower answers america. Spot i want you to think about what this does in terms of preventing eisenhower as a personality andr hows perhaps this is different from what weve seen with Adlai Stevenson, but then what weve seen before in previous campaigns. The first one, and this is the song that youll be singing the rest of the day. Ike for president ike for president ike for president you like ike i like ike everybody likes ike for president ev hang outeryo the banner bang the drum well take ike to washington lets get in step with the guy thats hip i like ike you like ike everybody likes ike for president hang up the banner bang the drum together were going, travel day and night we all go with ike you like ike i like ike everybody likes ike for ik president hang up the banners beat the drums well take ike to Washington Well take ike to washington now is the time for all good americans to come to the aid of their country. This also uses cartoons, but what does it do thats different from stevenson . Tanner . Yeah, so in this one, it kind of has more of a bandwagoning effect and he even says like wa its time for all good americans to come together. So itis brings up the notion t you know, you should join in on this party. Excellent. The great. That it is catchy in that it has like a chorus that repeats rather than the like farmers one relied on the fact that e fm everyoneer would know that song already. 50se do a lot of 40s andthat music in choir. People were already listening t music like this so it appealed to the masses in that pop culture idea. Excellent. And thats a really key point. Lucas . Weve already commented on how democrats were looking backwards in this campaign and s republicans were looking forward. Ive looked at these before in the past. One thing that standswe on out sun rising at the end. Ard. It seems like its a new day after this 20 yearsrs of democrt being in office. The so all of these different visuals. The music. The sound to it. Of they all emphasize innovation and looking forward. And enthusiasm. Creating that band wagon that join us. D enth this is something exciting moving forward. Dont you want to be a part of r it . I also notice how visuals were important because there was an illusion to harry truman. Allu hes on the campaign trail for stevenson, even though he wasnt up for election, of course. Unlike the democratic ads we saw earlier in the lect uure the ve visuals are very important for selling the message of the advertisement. So there still is a critique of the Democratic Party. Sellin but the emp to continue on the visual point, it really helps with the rewatch ability. I could probably recite, not the bob van bit, but the other piece i could probably recite that from memory after i like ike has all of those but little visual subtleties like Adlai Stevenson on a donkey riding in the background in silhouette that i didnt even catch that the first three times i watched that video. I have watched it many times. S. But also its very personalizing and digging into the sort of t i dont know if this had been its the idea of peer pressure. All of those catchy songs, the imagery, the slogans that come together to promote ike thh personality here. Prom you dont actually see eisenhower himselflf appear in this commercial. But Rosser Reeves, an advertising executiveth at this time talked with eisenhower repeatedly and said we need to get you as an individual into these short spots. And he came up with this idea about eisenhower answers america. And the notion issindi thatvi tt would be 20second spots. Very short. And they would have different individualsls asking eisenhower question about his platform, hi policies. What he would do as president. Hi and thiss is where eisenhower s really reluctant because this required him to spend an entire day in are television studio. Rehearsing all of these different lines. An they made him take off his udio, glasses. He couldnt see. So but really large cue cards in terms of so he could read the lines. They worked on the larg lightind put makeup on him to make him they attractive. This is where Robert Montgomeryi again played a role in terms of thinking about how do we present actors and using all of those tools of the trade to present t ike here. Pr very effective, efficient way. Eisenhower again was not happy n with this. But he reluctantly agreed to do it because he saw the potential reof reaching new audiences. He did grumble along the way. One of the most famous quotes in terms of critique that he ble offered was he was exasperated after an entire day of filming all of these commercials and said why dont you hire an actor . Y it would foreshadow what would l come inly terms of who was y, qualified for the presidency . Im going to play a couple here and tellll me what you think abt all these production tactics at play with this spot campaign. Eisenhower answers america. An general, the democrats are telling me ive never had it i good before. So when prices are double, when taxes break our backs and were still fighting in korea . Its tragic. And its time for a change. And then this one. Eisenhower answers america. You know what things cost today. High prices are just driving me crazy. Yes, my mamie gets after me about the high cost of living. Its another reason i say its time for a change. Time to get back to an honest dollar and an honest dollars worth. What do you notice with those two really quick clips. For jack . The big thinga i noticed wa that both clips, they were ou no looking up atti him at a very steep angle which is like putting him on a ped stal. M absolutely. Like please help us. We need help. A excellent. Tanner . So hee kind of uses Rosser Reeves unique selling sellin proposition in this saying these short spots he doesnt give he just gives simplistic short answers. Hes not giving very detailed, like, indepth perceptions to it. So thats whatansw i would say. And hes refuting the slogans, youve never had it so good is a Democratic Party repi slogan. Hes e refusing them and not in lot of detail but hes saying, what about the cost of living and tries to point a very t the specific to refute the slogan. So its not very specific in spf terms of all the details that he gives, but its a little bit more specific than the slogan. So that, again, 20 seconds he can try to refute some of the democratic slogans that theyre running on. Excellent. G kayla . Yeah, i think we can laugh at these because you can clearly see him reading the cue cards to and that very awkward pan to the front was kind of comical. But i think for the time, this is brilliant because its a person and eisenhower together and theyre talking to each other. It goes one step further than t the fireside chats. Its not just personable over jt the air waves. Its personable in person with the candidate and the American People have a chance to directly talk to him about their concerns. Uhhuh. Chanceto excellent. And again, it does personalize this conversation that ordinary americans are talking with this president ial candidate. It also, if you notice, the people they bring in allows him to speak to particular demographics. Women, africanamericans, trying to bring them into the Republican Party. And the timing of these. Mattered. So whilemen, Adlai Stevenson. Purchased longer chunks of time while later at night, what the Republican Party did is that they purchased expensive slots that were only 30 seconds long. That were maybe a minute long for the ike for president mi spot. And they purchased those at the end of the most popular shows. So frequently going to carolines point earlier, about how this fits in with the ed th popularos culture of the 1950s o when a show would end and this would seamlessly come on, youre capturing viewers who are already tuned in to a television variety show. And they continue to watch that because it fits in to those themes, that music that perhaps theyre used to hearing. And soso what this does is it creates an opportunity for ike the personality to reach out to new voters. And to reach out to perhaps independent voters or people who had previously voted for the Democratic Party. W or to emphasize this idea that perhaps you havent voted before. But theyre going to reachs you to people asbu media consumers. And thats a word that was used in their campaign. Le and in studies of their campaign during the 1950s. This notion of how can we appeal to voters as media consumers. Iso here is another innovation thato they broughtte to the campaign trail that you can find through the cspan Video Library that has all of these programs. And this is their election eve n program where you see Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower ms. Sitting next to one another m, looking clearly uncomfortable on camera, but they went on camera. And thats the key thing. They went on camera the night before the election, and they ni talked about what they wanted t do in office and then it goes goom them to showing scenes of them. Eisenhower leading troops in world war ii and some scenes of them campaigning around the camn country. So, again, it gave that personal connection. Connelection eve program from 1956 goes a step farther. Fr th that they organize ike celebrations all across the the country in San Francisco and detroit, and they had cameras i there capturing the surge of support that eisenhower had supr across the tcountry. And it showed it. It linked region to region through this election eve special. And then ended at the white house. So again, its trying to create a National Electorate to overcome different divides in region. And even class and social status through television. Trying to build a new constituency for the Republican Party through that language of television. And for the Republican Party ad Dwight Eisenhower, it worked. Media analysts after the 1952 1e electionle noted that eisenhowe and republicans used this new medium more effectively to effet attract aiv wider range of vote and to bring in new people to the Republican Party. And so i think thats a really key thing here. Thinking about how you can use a new medium to bring in individuals that may not have e been engaged in the political process before. They may not be invested in voting like workers are whose negotiating rights depended on e building that new deal coalitio or farmers who some of their ecm economic interests depending on these new deal programs. Rather, youre appealing to consumers and finding a the co way to getns them invested ed emotionally into the political o process. So one of the effective things that eisenhower does is he brings these innovations from t the campaign trail to the white itself. And transforms the white house into a production studio. Is and this is very literally, thek took the basement or the ba basement kitchen of the white house and turned it actually into a production studio itselft with cameras. And he had the help of Robert R Montgomery who went from a a Campaign Adviser on his media strategy to the First Television adviser as an official function of the white house staff. And he ultimately eisenhowers researching ways that he can capitalize on television and gen people interested in what hes as an individual from the white house. And so he experimented with television the same way that fd had experimented with radio. And again, this is on purpose. R what Robert Montgomery talks ta about in internal memos is he f says fdr was very innovative and we need to pick up from where h left off and take the presidencs into the next chapter with television. And so he has a variety of ar different tactics that he introduces. In 1954, theres the first televised cabinet meeting. This is also available through the cspan archives. And i would show you a clip, but its incredibly muddled, and i think that shows as to how its not as effective. Eisenhower was reluctant to hav a televised cabinet meeting, but his press secretary said this i a great opportunity to like radio before. James haggerty, his press secretary, said television thlows you to go to the people. And go directly to them without them having to read warped and slanted stories by the press. So again, that same way of usine a new medium to bypass Critical Coverage in the press and allow eisenhower to connect directly to viewers. He so he tries a televised cabinet meeting. But the issue with thed televi cabinet meeting, it was incredibly scripted, as you can imagine. They set upcan cameras and peo had scripts they were literallye reading, and it was clear this was scripted. That so, yes, they talked about the issues of the day, foreign t policy and economic challenges, but they did so in a way that t didnt seem like it was actually a fly on the wall where you wer seeing these policy discussions rather it was just another op opportunity to bring other figures of the president ial administration into the media eye to talk about policy. Had he also had the first televised press conference. And this is a tradition that has become engrained in the presidency ever since then. But again, he had report eers. He had reporters come in, ask certain questions of h eisenhow, but at the end of the day, jamee haggerty and Robert Montgomery were able to edit and to cut anat they didnt like from this press conference. And so some people celebrated these innovations as democracy in action. Others lamented that it was white house censorship and newsn management and that this was just another form of manipulation. Perhaps the biggest innovation that Dwight Eisenhower brings i with television to theto officef the presidency is the tradition that still persists to this day. And that is the idea of sitting at his desk and giving an out address about a National Crisis as it unfolded. And i want im going to play this quick clip to of an address that he delivers during the little rock crisis when the segregationist who did not want to integrate schools in little rock refused to allow africanamerican students to enroll in their high school. And so ultimately, because brow v. Board had just recently beene passed, Dwight Eisenhower ed decided that it was his role as president to enforce the brown v. Board decision and send federal troops to little rock to ensure that these africanamericanan students cou enroll and to integrate the high school in little rock. And he delivers this address of during this moment of National Crisis. During this moment in which he had just sent federal troops to the south to implement a national law. A decision that had been handed down by the Supreme Court. Su so think about the controversies. Rave looked atok theseed deba over racece and federal authori versus states rights and how theyve really embroiled american politics over the us previous century. And so its his moment of cris crisis. He uses television to frame whats happening as it is unfolding. Again, i want you t to think about how this is different from thehe news reelse and fireside chats that Franklin Roosevelt used. Office in the white house in washington, d. C. We present a special address by the president of the united wash states, dwight d. Eisenhower. Enf mr. Eisenhower discusses the integration problem at little rock, arkansas. Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States. Good evening, my fellow ow citizens. For a fewew minutes this evening, i should like to speak to you e about the serious situation th has arisen in little rock. To make this talk, i have come to the president s office in th white house. I co from rhode ere island of where i have been staying recently. But i felt that in speaking from the house of lincoln and of wilson, my words would better convey both the sadness i feel and the actionn i was compelled today to make and the firmness with which i intend to pursue ts this course until the orders of the federal court at little roc can be executed without unlawful interference. Unde in that city, under the leadership of demagogic extremists, disorderly mobs havi prevented the carrying outbe of proper orders from a federal court. Local authorities have not imint animinated thated violent opposition. And under the law, i, yesterday, issued a proclamation calling yr upon the mob to disperse. This morning, the mob again gathered in front of the centrar high school of little rock. Obviously, for the purpose of again preventing the carrying out of the courts order relating to the admission of ado negro children to that school. Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task and it becomes necessary for the it executive branch of the federal government to use his powers and authority to uphold federal courts, the president s ble responsibility is inescapable. In accordance with that responsibility, i have today issued an executive order issued ferecting the a use of troops underde federal authority to ai in the execution of federal law at little rock, arkansas. This became necessary when my pa proclamation of yesterday was not observed and the obstruction of justice still continues. So what does he do here . Here what power does this give him . Caroline . So he, as the executive, shows that he is listening to whats happening around the show country, and hes like the firs one to, you know, have a stake in it. And he talks about the executive order that he makes and, of the course, the Supreme Court has i think itskeep cooper v. Aaro where they decienforce the brow decision, but as the executive, he is showing like, yes, i am y, the figure that represents america, and im here talking about this first so i think tha that primacy effect is important. I was going to say, he shows very clear executive power in pris moment that i am the president of the United States, and you will obey this executive order that i have am trying to enforce because of a Supreme Court decision. This ise how our laws work. But also he doesnt directly call out he calls out like the police there in little rock, but he puts the emphasis really on these demagogue extremists, the people, rather than the the government there, the local government and governor fabis. Im from little rock so this is important to me. Nt but he doesnt really call out o the local government there for really enforcing anything which is interesting because i think in some ways hes trying to hes notth trying to isolate anh push them away for not doing their job basically, but hes putting the emphasis really on the people and these mobs and that theyre out of emcontrol, e its not really the politicians that are really to blame for this. Why do you think he does that . Whats the goal . . Because thats on purpose the pu way he frames it. Think i think hes trying to keep them in like draw them into the party, especially as they kind of undergoing this shift between the democrats and the an Republican Party like ideals i u think are starting to shift ando southern democrats that the idea of the southern democratic part is changing. Cratic and so hes trying to pull in in southerners and southern politicians to into the repul Republican Party. Absolutely. So at the same time that he is forced to finally take a stance on the little rock crisis and send troops in and he does feel that its his obligation as the executive to follow the law of the land, but at the same time,t the republican National Committee is undergoing a ststudies, they call operation dixie, where theyre thinking about ways in which they can capitalize on the divides that are growing in thea Democratic Party between southern conservatives and more liberal northern democrats that want to act on civil rights. So its a really calculated move in terms of how he frames it that you absolutely hit on. Excellent. Firstly, i find it ironic that he chose Andrew Jackson of all people to talk about when talking about the enforcement of a Supreme Court decision given h that onee of jacksons most famousus decisions was not to listen to the Supreme Court in the case of the indian removal act. Of but also, one thing he makes very clear is this is, to inue continue off of the absolving government point, he makes it e very clear that this is a last resort. Its very much the people are not listening to what has been said previously so we have to send the army in to enforce this decision because we are a natioh of laws and those laws must be followed. Excellent. Great. I ryan . I want to highlight what eisenhower said at the beginning. He was like, ivethe come to tl white house when i could have just been in rhode island, and the visual ly forbe aspect of this address because if its over the radio, it doesnt matter where he is. The but he goes back to the white to, one, lend credibility to to what he is saying and, two, to draw comparisons to those president s he mentioned that jackson not respecting the Supreme Court, hes trying to lend legitimacy to his actions and the actions of the federal e government through the location giving the address. Uhhuh. Thats very key. Ry he. Youre absolutely right. He recognizes the visual power of the oval office. And this is something that president s time and time again. Will continue to invoke that visual power. And they will use these addresseses from that very same spot to talk to the country in anments of crisis. And so again, this is a really new development that eisenhower recognizes in terms of shifting the powerer dynamics. And as you and katlyn mentioned, overwhelmingly its the president thats taking action. And the president dominates espi television, especially in comparison to congress at this e time so its part of that visua shift in terms of who is taking action, who is reading the le country thats centering more in the executive branch than in the legislative branch. So tot get to the question that we started with today, does levi television revolutionize the presidency . Does it just build on trends that are already in play . Does something fundamentally change with television and the pres presidency . Caroline . I think its a mix of both. Its not the best answer, but, obviously theres always trends in the media. Even just within the presidency we talk about Teddy Roosevelt being the firstbe personality president and that translates fdrs radio addresses that he uses rhetoric Everyday Americans can understand. The biggest thing with with television being introduced is this idea of a media immed institution. Douglas in her article gets int that with kennedy but this idea that there are these agencies now, pr agencies. Like pr is a profession that in comes into existence in this era because theres this idea that theres a way to use media, not even paid advertising, to make your message more known and makr it seem credible and make peopl jump on board with it. D and this idea that there are these also these norms that s have to be addressed and e to understood with television as well. We i think the fact theres this institution behind television, not just the like not just the media meitself. The fa not just the fact its visual but theres an institution surrounding it and what changes. Thats excellent. A great observation. And you saw that in the a gr beginning of this where if you notice, they showed him walking up to his desk. They showed the tv cameras. And frequently, footage of eisenhower in the oval office nr would show that that productio scene around it. It newspapers would report on that and say, oh, the real excitemen was behind the camera, and they would describe what was d happening. So theres an education that th entire public gets about how media as an institution works. S that comes with the use of television and the implementation of this studio i. The oval office. Excellent. Tanner . With television now, its going to bring a lot more transparency to the executive branch. Now that they do haveive visua and its being more personable. Like when they get into families homes and gathered around the tv and get to watch n the actual president give actu speeches and address certain agendas and everything else. C excellent. Great. Ryan . I think the use of television is revolutionary in the fact that it changes who can be major party candidates. I think it would have been much more difficult for fdr with his polio to be a successful pr president in the 1950s because his campaign and staff is alwayt doing everything they could to but down his physical ailment. But instead with television, wih its much easier to use the personality that roosevelt used to appeal to the people and later candidates and kennedy and reagan use different backgrounds than, say, the Party Politics th that truman or mckinley or any of the antebellum president s th came out of. And thats the biggest change that television creates on the presidency. Excellent. Yes. S. Itch challenges party structure. And allows for those people who can command Media Attention to not have to negotiate and wheel and deal behinde the scenes to gain power and privilege within the party but to go to the to public. And this doesthe pu set up very what comes next on thursday, which is the 1960 election when john f. Kennedy does exactly that. Brent . What sorry about the delay. What i was going to say is, also on the oppositete side of that, asas kell kelly mentioned in their article that we read, you had things like the Eisenhower Nixon Research Group that codified a Party Machine version two. It was less about being the kingmaker and more about taking what limited money they had, which it was millions of s dollars. It wasnt limitedio byns like i scope, but it was they did have a budget. And figuring out what the most g effective way to spend that money was. Spend th absolutely. Excellent. So new challenges within the party itself to think about how to adapt and take advantage of the media landscape. And and then the role of individuals that who are not a part of the party can think about ways in which they can foreground themselves to make the party take them seriously. And that and that again is something thay st Stanley Kelly talks about acci in this particular excerpt. Im going to give you a brief second to read this. And its part of the reading, o but i think it gets at the core of what youre talking about in terms of changing party structureses that happened becat of Public Relations and television. So if you are a candidate that is looking to win a president ial nomination from your party, and its reallyth telling that thiss Stanley Kelley jr. Which you a read for today. T hes a political scientist at princeton and one of the first people to actually study this pc question of Public Relations and Power Dynamics. How would this new industry of Public Relations is shifting the Power Dynamics in american politics during the 1950s. This comes out in 1956. If you are an astute and eagerf public official and you wantic think about a president ial nomination, how would you take this advice that he gives and perhaps apply it to your campaign . Katlyn . I think you have to become a celebrity within your own rightt somehow politically or reag otherwise. You could bean reagan and be an actor or radio falk show host or something on the radio that he did, i dont remember. Or you become a political celebrity but either waypoli yo have to make publicity for d in yourself in order to capture the public imagination before you even Start Talking about your policies. In order to get that attention that you are a person and that youre seeking this nomination and that that youre like a people of the person again, a celebrity. The importance of a systematic largescale privately sponsored publicity buildup in order to gain political legitimacy. And thissand th is something th f. Kennedy studies and us recognizes and uses in his Camp Campaign to winai the democrati nomination in 1960. Notabl and its notable as we will tal about on thursday that his s challenger was Lyndon Johnson. The most powerful democrat in the country that had all of the authority of working within the Democratic Party since the time of the new deal. Building up his credibility and his authority. His y and ability to manipulate in the senate. Those two were the leading contenders for the democratic president ial nomination in 1960, and its very telling that john f. Kennedy is on the ticket as president and Lyndon Johnson as vice president. D and so how that came about and the 1960 campaign when we had all of these conflicting ideas about who should have authorityd all of that will be the story w look into on thursday. Great job today. Lo all week were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available on weekends. Lectures in history. American artifacts. Reel america. The civil war. Oral histories. The presidency. And special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan3. American history tv products are available at the new cspan online store. Go to cspanstore. Org to see whats new for American History tv and check out all of the cspan products. 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