The Rockets' Red Glare

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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.)

Library Journal

This is a lively, insightful, and lucid account of the role public opinion has played in the foreign policy process from George Washington's administration through the Reagan years. Enlisting a wide variety of sources, Barnet, cofounder of the Institute for Policy Studies and author of Roots of War ( LJ 5/1/72) and Real Security ( LJ 6/15/81), reconstructs the historical struggles between presidents and the American people to shape and control decisions of war and peace. Barnet notes that as public opinion became more influential in foreign policy decisions of the nuclear age, presidents endeavored to manipulate and define public attitudes. The author concludes by arguing that greater democratization of the foreign policy process would yield more sensible decisions in the future. This splendid work deserves a broad audience.-- Gary L. Malecha, Weber State Coll., Ogden, Ut.