policy - The Black Vault

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CHAPTER 1 ENDNOTES
1. Maxwell D. Taylor, Swords and Plowshares (New York: W.W. Norton & Co.,
Inc., 1972), p. 401.
2. Bill D. Moyers, "One Thing We Learned," Foreign Affairs, July 1968, p. 657.
3. See Chapter 5 for discussion of articulate spokesmen of both the
right and the left.
4.
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Particularly in the age of television, the public image and personality
of a candidate or a spokesman for any given issue(s) c.an influ- -A
ence the statistical pattern of voting to some degree.
5. Louis Harris, The Anguish of Change (N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Co., 1973),
p. 3.
6. John E. Mueller, War, Presidents and Public Oinion (N.Y.: John Wiley
& Sons, Inc., 1973), p. 2. For instance, in 1964 a cross section of
the Americanpublic was asked, "Do you happen to know what kind of
government China has right now - whether it is democratic or communist?"
28% admitted they did nnt know. By 1968 the self-confessed
ignorance had dropped to 24%. Thus, when the public is asked questions
concerning US-Chinese foreign policy issues, it is uncertain
what credence can be placed in the polls results.
7. Michael Wheeler, Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics (N.Y.: Liveright,
1976), p. 141 discusses the general lack of understanding of
foreign affairs that is evident among large parts of the US population
and is also reflected in the understanding of Vietnam-related
questions. In March 1966, American participation in the Vietnam war
was rapidly escalating and the war had dcminated the news for two
years. Nevertheless, a poll taken at that time indicated t hat only
47% of the American people could name Saigon as the capital of the
So.jth and only 41% could identify Hanoi as the capital of North
Vietram. See also:
Gabriel A. Almond, The American People and Foreig.n Policy (New York:
Frederick A. Praeger-, 1965), discusses American public opinion on
4 foreign policy issues. His excellent work examines changes in the
r "foreign policy mood" since the post World War II period. He further
examines regional differences in public attitudes concerning
foreign affairs.
Barry Hughes, The Domestic Context of American Foreign Policy (San
Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1978) pp. 23-24 comments that it
t is more accurate to talk about three "publics" instead of one. The
first "public" consists of people who are unaware of all but the most
major events in foreign affairs - like the launching of Sputnik -
and have either no opinions or generally weak ones. Hughes indicates
that this group is about 30 percent of the total adult population.
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