The rise of the media presidency through radio and television
broadcasts has heightened the visibility and importance of
presidential speeches in determining the effectiveness and
popularity of the president of the United States. Not surprisingly,
this development has also witnessed the rise of professional
speechwriters to craft the words the chief executive would address
to the nation.
	
    Yet, as this volume of expert analyses clearly demonstrates, the
reliance of individual presidents on their speechwriters has varied
with the rhetorical skill of the officeholder himself, his managerial
style, and his personal attitude toward public speaking. The
individual chapters here (two by former White House
speechwriters) give fascinating insight into the process and
development of presidential speechwriting from Franklin D.
Roosevelt's administration to Ronald Reagan's. Some contributors,
such as Charles Griffin writing on Eisenhower and Moya Ball on
Johnson, offer case studies of specific speeches to gain insight into
those presidents. Other chapters focus on institutional
arrangements and personal relationships, rhetorical themes
characterizing an administration, or the relationship between words
and policies to shed light on presidential speechwriting.

    The range of presidents covered affords opportunities to
examine various factors that make rhetoric successful or not, to
study alternative organizational arrangements for speechwriters,
and even to consider the evolution of the rhetorical presidency
itself. Yet, the volume's single focus on speechwriting and the
analytic overviews provided by Martin J. Medhurst not only bring
coherence to the work but also make this book an exemplar of how
unity can be achieved from a diversity of approaches.

    Medhurst's introduction of ten "myths" in the scholarship on
presidential speeches and his summary of the enduring issues in the
practice of speechwriting pull together the work of individual
contributors. At the same time, his introduction and conclusion
transcend particular presidents by providing generalizations on the
role of speechwriting in the modern White House.

_________________________________________________________

KURT RITTER is a professor of speech communication at Texas
A&M University in College Station, Texas. He was the coordinator
of the Conference on Presidential Rhetoric at Texas A&M from
which this volume grew. MARTIN J. MEDHURST is a distinguished
professor of rhetoric and communication at Baylor University in Waco
as well as editor of the scholarly journal Rhetoric & Public Affairs.


Number Seven: Presidential Rhetoric Series