When Presidents Lie (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | Eric Alterman | knygos.lt

Aprašymas

By the end of the 20th century, after decades of demoralizing revelations about the mendacity of their elected officials, most Americans had come to accept the fact that deception was not only an accepted practice in government but also pervasive. Whatever the reasons proposed to justify falsehoods--practicality, expediency, extraordinary conditions of wartime--the ability to lie convincingly had come to be regarded as almost being a qualification for holding public office. Although such behavior has come to be tolerated, little accounting has been taken of the effects of this institutionalized dishonesty in our political culture.
In "WHEN PRESIDENTS LIE" journalist and historian Eric Alterman examines four key presidential lies of the postwar period, all of them regarding a crucial question of war and peace. The Yalta conference, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the Central American wars of the 1980s have all turned out to be unhappy turning points in American history, and the misrepresentations made about them to the public would have both domestic and international repercussions for years to come. FDR's refusal to reveal the concessions made to Stalin at Yalta generated a poisonous political reaction that set the stage for forty years of Cold War and the abuses of McCarthyism. John F. Kennedy's cover-up of the deal he and his brother secretly negotiated to end the Cuban Missile Crisis helped pave the way for Vietnam. LBJ's false representations about an attack on U.S. forces in the Gulf of Tonkin poisoned the conduct of the war and destroyed Johnson's dreams of social progress at home. Finally, Ronald Reagan's myriad deceptions regarding U.S. involvement in the Central American wars led to the Iran-contra scandal, and helped set the stage for George W. Bush's "post-truth" presidency.
WHEN PRESIDENTS LIE is history at its most compelling, a balanced, eloquent, and revelatory chronicle of presidential dishonesty and its incalculable costs. In the fundamental questions it raises about leadership, accountability, and democracy, it is required reading for anyone who is concerned about America's past--or her future.