5894 Cullinane and Ellis.Indd

Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © editorial matter and organization Michael Patrick Cullinane & Sylvia Ellis, 2018 © the chapters their several authors, 2018 Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/13 Adobe Sabon by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978 1 4744 3731 8 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 3733 2 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 3734 9 (epub) The right of Michael Patrick Cullinane and Sylvia Ellis to be identifi ed as the editors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). 55894_Cullinane894_Cullinane aandnd EEllis.inddllis.indd iivv 004/10/184/10/18 33:38:38 PPMM Contents Acknowledgments vii Notes on Contributors viii An introduction to presidential legacy 1 Michael Patrick Cullinane and Sylvia Ellis 1. Presidential temples: America’s presidential libraries and centers from the 1930s to today 11 Benjamin Hufbauer 2. Presidential legacy: A literary problem 26 Kristin A. Cook 3. Pennsylvania Avenue meets Madison Avenue: The White House and commercial advertising 55 Michael Patrick Cullinane 4. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address in history and memory 76 Richard V. Damms 5. Pageantry, performance, and statecraft: Diplomacy and the presidential image 103 Thomas Tunstall Allcock 6. “You’ve got to decide how you want history to remember you”: The legacy of Lyndon B. Johnson in fi lm and television 133 Gregory Frame 7. The farewell tour: Presidential travel and legacy building 158 Emily J. Charnock v 55894_Cullinane894_Cullinane aandnd EEllis.inddllis.indd v 004/10/184/10/18 33:38:38 PPMM content s 8. Refl ecting or reshaping?: Landmark anniversaries and presidential legacy 206 Mark McLay 9. From a “new paradigm” to “memorial sprawl”: The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Memorial 227 Patrick Hagopian 10. Top Trumps: Presidential legacies, new technologies, and a new generation 258 Sylvia Ellis Epilogue: Confessions of a presidential biographer 277 H. W. Brands Index 284 vi 55894_Cullinane894_Cullinane aandnd EEllis.inddllis.indd vvii 004/10/184/10/18 33:38:38 PPMM Contributors H. W. Brands is Professor and Jack S. Blanton Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin and has written over twenty-fi ve books, including several critically acclaimed presidential biogra- phies such as Traitor to His Class, which was a fi nalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Emily J. Charnock is Keasbey Research Fellow in American Studies at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. Her forth- coming book explores the role of interest groups in twentieth- century US election campaigns, and their infl uence upon the political parties. Kristin A. Cook is Associate Tutor in US Foreign Policy with SOAS University of London and the Secretary of the Transatlantic Stud- ies Association. She earned her Ph.D. as a Doctoral Fellow with the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, examining Adam Smith’s philosophical ideas in the early United States. Michael Patrick Cullinane is Professor of US History at the University of Roehampton. He is the author of Theodore Roosevelt’s Ghost: The History and Memory of an American Icon, Liberty and American Anti-Imperialism, 1898–1909, and the co-author of The Open Door Era: US Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century. viii 55894_Cullinane894_Cullinane aandnd EEllis.inddllis.indd vviiiiii 004/10/184/10/18 33:38:38 PPMM contributors Richard V. Damms is Associate Professor of History and Head of the Division of Arts and Sciences at Mississippi State Univer- sity, Meridian. He is the author of The Eisenhower Presidency, 1953–1961 and Scientists and Statesmen: Eisenhower’s Science Advisers and National Security Policy. Sylvia Ellis is Professor of American History at the University of Roehampton. She is the author of Freedom’s Pragmatist: Lyn- don Johnson and Civil Rights, A Historical Dictionary of Anglo- American Relations, and Britain, America, and the Vietnam War. Gregory Frame is Lecturer in Film Studies at Bangor University. He is the author of The American President in Film and Television: Myth, Politics and Representation. Patrick Hagopian is Senior Lecturer in History and American Studies at Lancaster University. He is the author of The Vietnam War in American Memory: Veterans, Memorials, and the Politics of Healing, and American Immunity: War Crimes and the Limits of International Law. Benjamin Hufbauer is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Louisville. He is the author of the book Presidential Temples: How Memorials and Libraries Shape Public Memory. Mark McLay is Lecturer in American History at the University of Glasgow. He researches the modern Republican Party and social policy, and is currently writing a monograph, Poverty Won: The Republican Party and the War on Poverty, 1964–1981. Mark also co-hosts the American History Too! podcast. Thomas Tunstall Allcock is Lecturer in American History at the University of Manchester. He is the author of Thomas C. Mann: President Johnson, the Cold War, and the Restructuring of Latin American Foreign Policy. ix 55894_Cullinane894_Cullinane aandnd EEllis.inddllis.indd iixx 004/10/184/10/18 33:38:38 PPMM An introduction to presidential legacy Michael Patrick Cullinane and Sylvia Ellis At the ground breaking of the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College, President John F. Kennedy gave the convocation and refl ected on the importance of legacy and memorials. “A nation reveals itself, not only by the men it produces, but by the men it honors,” he told the gathering. Kennedy feted Frost as a man of infi nite importance to American culture, and congratulated Amherst for commemorating a poet rather than a president. “In America, our heroes have customarily run to men of large and dramatic accomplishment,” but the Frost Library, Kennedy noted, memorializes “our spirit.”1 By celebrating a writer rather than a statesman, a critic rather than a general, Kennedy believed that Amherst expanded our memory of the American experience. That endorsement was especially poignant because little more than a week after he addressed the college, Kennedy was dead. His assassination obscured the thrust of his argument—that in the United States, memorials and tributes skew towards men of dramatic accomplishment like generals and presidents. The public clamor to confer martyrdom on the slain president led to the pro- liferation of memorials at home and abroad, and the commemo- rative activities seemed to prove Kennedy’s point. If we count the memorials, there are few personalities larger than the president and no single offi ce as emblematic of the American experience. Presidents leave the White House with a weighty legacy derived primarily from their role as head of state, and they often act as emblems of the era in which they serve. It is popular to summarize the national condition with epochal monikers like the “Age of 1 55894_Cullinane894_Cullinane aandnd EEllis.inddllis.indd 1 004/10/184/10/18 33:38:38 PPMM michael patrick cullinane and sylvia ellis Jackson” or the “Reagan Revolution,” and in doing so bestow an entire era to a president. Times of prosperity or stagnation affect our recollection of their stewardship, as does social progress or lack thereof. Presidential legacies come to embody their achieve- ments, shortcomings, transgressions, and the precedents they set. In addition, the consequences of their decisions—intended or unintended—contribute to our memories of presidential adminis- trations and help construct a legacy. Successive generations play a considerable role in determining how we consider presidential leadership, and Kennedy’s Amherst speech recognized one of the most important factors in legacy production: people. While any president can lay claim to a set of legislative accomplishments or assert their instrumentality in social progress, building a legacy requires buy-in from those who lived through presidential terms of service as well as later generations. Legacy requires mass refl ection upon the past and, to a certain extent, a consensus on how we interpret history. Kennedy, for example, left an indelible mark on the national consciousness in myriad ways. We can debate the virtues of his tax cuts, Cold War brinkmanship, or the morality of his romantic dalliances and still recognize what his election represented in an era of striking cultural change, as the fi rst Catholic president, and as a victim of assassination. Indeed, legacies may derive from opposing con- stituencies, and can produce divergent interpretations of the past. Kennedy’s memorial at Runnymede outside London offers a case in point.2 The stone tablet, placed at the site made famous by King John affi xing his seal to the Magna Carta, celebrates Kennedy’s commitment to democracy during the Cold War. In 1968, only three years after the dedication of that memorial, anti-Vietnam War protesters attempted to destroy the tablet with a bomb, and a year later vandals spray-painted a swastika on the facade.3 Legacy is subjective, and changes as our circumstances evolve and percep- tions adjust.4 Our memories of past presidents create legacy themes that then appear in memorials, and these memorials can be as varied as our memories. Moreover, such diversity in approach to presidential commemoration often produces incongruous impressions. Utilitarian memorials confer meaning by naming spaces, services, 2 55894_Cullinane894_Cullinane aandnd EEllis.inddllis.indd 2 004/10/184/10/18 33:38:38 PPMM an introduction to presidential legacy and facilities.

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