One historian is casting an eye on how modern U.S. presidents use their tools and techniques of persuasion – more commonly known as “spin” – to win the hearts and minds of the American people.

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Another is examining how Americans have understood the business of postwar occupation, particularly the military governments that Washington imposed on defeated Axis powers after World War II.

The two Rutgers academics will have the opportunity to compare and contrast their insights with each other and with other pre-eminent thinkers this year as Woodrow Wilson Fellows, part of a highly selective program that brings scholars to Washington to interact with policymakers at the nation’s top echelons.

David Greenberg, associate professor of history and journalism and media studies in New Brunswick, and Susan Carruthers, professor of history in the Department of History in Newark, are among the 20 members of the 2010-2011 class of fellows who are spending the academic year conducting independent research at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the nation’s capital.

Men and women from a wide variety of backgrounds, including government, the non-profit sector, the corporate world, and the professions, as well as academia, are eligible for appointment. Through an international competition, the program offers nine-month residential fellowships to academics, public officials, journalists, and business professionals.
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Greenberg’s work examines the way American presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush have established their reputations and promoted their politics. Greenberg describes how different approaches evolved over the 20th century, and how journalists and intellectuals reacted to these developments.

“The idea of president as very public figure whose job is not just to set agenda but also to sell it goes back to Theodore Roosevelt,” he said.

Greenberg argues that although the term “spin” carries a negative connotation, manipulating the media is not inherently wrong. In fact, he suggests that to be a strong leader, a president has to put forth his best case to the people -- not dishonestly, but not neutrally, either.

“We would think it very strange if a president gave a list of reasons why we should go to war and then offered another list of reasons why we shouldn’t and then asked America to vote,” says Greenberg. “We want the president to take a stand and present his or her best argument. Spin is a necessary part of leadership.”

Greenberg’s interest in the phenomenon grew out of his 2003 book about Richard Nixon, “Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image,” which detailed how Nixon’s blatant efforts to control the press fueled a growing distrust of politicians.

“There is always a natural tension between politicians and media. Both sides think they are the ones better positioned to give the public the facts of the matter,” says Greenberg. “Journalists believe they are the ones that are going to offer the truth, and presidents don’t want their messages getting muddied by the press.”

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A specialist in U.S. foreign relations, Susan Carruthers will use her fellowship to develop her fourth book, “The Good Occupation: Military Government in the American Imagination.” The research will examine what being an occupying power has meant to Americans, and how popular perceptions of U.S. postwar dominance has fluctuated from World War II to the present.

Reflecting on more than two decades of study by historians and cultural critics who have shown how World War II came to be perceived as “the Good War,” Carruthers plans to investigate how the occupations that followed have been similarly transformed in popular memory.

While press reports in the late 1940s emphasized the more troubling aspects of military government – from black markets and looting to “fraternization” – what is now recollected is generally the “miracle” of postwar transformation, Carruthers said.

Carruthers said her interest in the topic was sparked by the way history was mobilized to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

“In early 2003, I was struck by the frequency by which Bush administration officials referenced the U.S. occupation of postwar Germany and Japan in making the case for invading Iraq,” Carruthers recalled. If the Germans and Japanese could be “cured” of their insatiable appetite for world conquest, the logic went, it surely should be simple to rid Iraq of Ba’athism and install a democratic regime.

Thus, “doubters were assured that occupation was an ennobling enterprise for occupiers and occupied alike,” she concluded.

Other historians have taken issue with the analogy between Iraq and Germany or Japan, Carruthers said, but she hopes to uncover a much more complicated history of Americans’ relationship with occupation, a recurrent theme in U.S. history she believes has often been neglected.

Media Contact: Nicole Pride
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E-mail: npride@ur.rutgers.edu