Bryce Harlow

Bryce Harlow was one of the most extraordinary political figures in the United States in the second half of the 20th century. He served four Presidents with honor and distinction.Bryce Harlow was one of the most extraordinary political figures in the United States in the second half of the 20th century. He served four Presidents with honor and distinction. Dr. Henry Kissinger observes that Harlow spent his entire life studying the ways of Washington, D.C., alternating between participant and observer.

Reputation Management is a how-to guide for professionals and students in public relations and corporate communication, as well as for CEOs and other leaders. It rests on the premise that reputation can be measured, monitored, and managed. Organized by corporate communication units (media relations, employee communication, government relations, and investor relations, for example), the book provides a field-tested guide to corporate reputation problems such as leaked memos, unfair treatment by the press, and negative rumors--and it is this rare book that focuses on practical solutions.

For the past three decades, America has steadily become a nation of haves and have-nots. Our incomes are increasingly unequal. This steady growing apart is often mentioned as a troubling indicator by scholars and policy analysts, though seldom addressed by politicians. What economics Nobelist Paul Krugman terms "the Great Divergence" has till now been treated as little more than a talking point, a rhetorical club to be wielded in ideological battles. But this Great Divergence may be the most important change in this country during our lifetimes-a drastic, elemental change in the character of American society, and not at all for the better. The inequality gap is much more than a left-right hot potato-its causes and consequences call for a patient, non-partisan exploration. Timothy Noah's The Great Divergence, based on his award-winning series of articles for Slate, surveys the roots of the wealth gap, drawing on the best thinking of contemporary economists and political scientists. Noah also explores potential solutions to the problem, and explores why the growing rich-poor divide has sparked remarkably little public anger, in contrast to social unrest that prevailed before the New Deal. The Great Divergence is poised to be one of the most talked-about books of 2012, a jump-start to the national conversation about the shape of American society in the 21st century, and a work that will help frame the debate in a Presidential election year.

Black Ballots is an in-depth look at suffrage expansion in the South from World War II through the Johnson administration. Steven Lawson focuses on the "Second Reconstruction"-the struggle of blacks to gain political power in the South through the ballot-which both whites and black perceived to be a key element in the civil rights process. Examining the struggle of civil rights groups to enfranchise Negroes, Lawson also analyzes the responses of federal and local officials to those efforts. He describes the various techniques-from the white primary, the poll tax, literacy tests, and restrictive registration procedures through sheer intimidation-that were developed by white southerners to perpetuate disfranchisement and the sundry methods used by blacks and their white allies to challenge them.

The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published daily when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record began publication in 1873. Debates for sessions prior to 1873 are recorded in The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (1789-1824), the Register of Debates in Congress (1824-1837), and the Congressional Globe (1833-1873)

Spin Control, originally published in 1992, chronicles the development of the powerful White House Office of Communications and its pivotal role in molding our perception of the modern presidency. In this new edition, John Maltese brings his analysis up to date with a chapter detailing the media techniques of the Bush administration, the 1992 presidential campaign (including the use of talk shows like 'Larry King Live'), and the early Clinton administration.

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched a 184-pound metal ball called Sputnik into orbit around the Earth, and America plummeted into a panic. Nuclear weapon designer Edward Teller claimed that the United States had lost "a battle more important and greater than Pearl Harbor," and magazine articles appeared with such headlines as "Are We Americans Going Soft?" In the White House, President Eisenhower seemed to do nothing, leading Kennedy in 1960 to proclaim a "missile gap" in the Soviet's favor. Rarely has public perception been so dramatically at odds with reality. In The Sputnik Challenge, Robert Divine provides a fascinating look at Eisenhower's handling of the early space race--a story of public uproar, secret U-2 flights, bungled missile tests, the first spy satellite, political maneuvering, and scientific triumph. He recreates the national hysteria over the first two Sputnik launches, illustrating the anxious handwringing that the Democrats (led by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson) aggressively played for political gain. Divine takes us to private White House meetings, showing how Eisenhower worked closely with science adviser James Killian, allowing him to take the lead in creating a civilian agency--NASA--which provided intelligent and forceful leadership for American space programs. But the President also knew from priceless intelligence from U-2 flights over the U.S.S.R. that he had little to fear from the touted missile gap, and he fought to limit the growth and multiplication of military missile programs. Eisenhower's assurance, however, rested on classified information, and he did little to instill his confidence in the public. Nor could he boast of his early support for the secret spy satellite program (which quickly replaced the U-2 plane after Gary Powers was shot down in 1960). So the public continued to worry, feeding the national movement for educational reform as well as congressional maneuvering over funding for numerous strategic projects. Eisenhower, Divine writes, possessed keen strategic vision and a sure sense of budgetary priorities, but ultimately he flunked a crucial test of leadership when he failed to reassure the frightened public that their fears were groundless. As a result, he ultimately failed in his goal to limit military spending as well--which led to a real missile gap in reverse. Incisively written and deeply researched, The Sputnik Challenge provides a briskly-paced history of the origins of NASA, the space race, and the age of the ICBM.

Barber B. Conable, Jr.—perhaps the most respected member of Congress of his era—kept a frank, insightful, revealing journal available now for the first time thanks to the efforts of editor Bill Kauffman in The Congressional Journal of Barber B. Conable, Jr., 1968–1984. The journal is an honest, searching, sometimes humorous, occasionally cutting, and always fascinating look inside Congress. Conable, a Republican member of the House from upstate New York, wrote perceptively about Presidents Nixon, Ford, H. W. Bush, and the leading congressional figures of the day. For seventeen years he wrote about the big events as well as daily political life in an era that included Vietnam, Watergate, political realignment, and major changes in entitlements and taxes, where he played a key role. Displaying his gift for clear expression and astute insight, Conable narrates the machinations of major tax measures, trade bills, and such special interests of his as public financing of congressional campaigns. While he is never shy about expressing personal judgments, he revels in the give and take of legislative politics. Conable had an acute sense of the human dynamics of legislating: In addition to the tax bills he shaped and struggled with as the leading Republican on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, his work with the 1982–1983 Social Security Commission, led by Alan Greenspan, is a classic exercise. Conable thought a deal was critical for the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund but politically almost impossible given the differing priorities of the chief protagonists, President Reagan and House Speaker Tip O’Neill. In the journal Conable pronounces the effort doomed on January 13, 1983. Two days later he marvels at the political and personal dexterity and skill that ended up producing a deal. The journal illuminates Conable’s intellect, his commitment to his constituents, and his appreciation of principled pragmatism; his writings are in real time, not rendered retrospectively to make himself look better, a rarity among political legacies.

This book offers an overview of the developing body of empirical research on the Eisenhower presidency. It provides an analysis of key features of Eisenhower's staffing structure, his institutional presidency, his decision making and relation between the White house and cabinet.

Presidents have long invoked electoral mandates to justify the use of executive power. In Delivering the People’s Message, Julia R. Azari draws on an original dataset of more than 1,500 presidential communications, as well as primary documents from six presidential libraries, to systematically examine choices made by presidents ranging from Herbert Hoover in 1928 to Barack Obama during his 2008 election. Azari argues that Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 marked a shift from the modern presidency formed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to what she identifies as a more partisan era for the presidency. This partisan model is a form of governance in which the president appears to require a popular mandate in order to manage unruly and deeply contrary elements within his own party and succeed in the face of staunch resistance from the opposition party. Azari finds that when the presidency enjoys high public esteem and party polarization is low, mandate rhetoric is less frequent and employs broad themes. By contrast, presidents turn to mandate rhetoric when the office loses legitimacy, as in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam and during periods of intense polarization. In the twenty-first century, these two factors have converged. As a result, presidents rely on mandate rhetoric to defend their choices to supporters and critics alike, simultaneously creating unrealistic expectations about the electoral promises they will be able to fulfill.