The Rhetoric of Presidential Leadership in American Foreign Affairs: Richard Nixon the Cold War Negotiator
Keywords:
Richard Nixon, Presidential Rhetoric, Political Discourse, US-Soviet Relations, Cold WarAbstract
This article focuses on President Richard Nixon’s handling of US-Soviet relations in the first three years of his presidency. Set within a framework of US foreign policy for the 1970s, the article traces the development of Nixon’s approach to the Soviet leaders and their Communist ideology and identifies characteristic rhetorical devices around which the president structured his discourse concerning American-Soviet relations. The article argues that through his rhetorical choices Nixon indicated that he paid attention to conditions which could bring the US and the Soviet Union closer together and dared to pursue policies that could improve bilateral relations.
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