Dr. Randall Forsberg is executive director of the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, a think tank she founded in 1980 with the aim of reducing the risk of war and minimizing the burden of U.S. military spending. In this video segment, she describes the reach of grassroots activism at the height of 1982's national Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, which called for a bilateral, verifiable halt to new production of nuclear weapons. In the interview she conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: 'Visions of War and Peace,' Forsberg describes the genesis of the movement, which was born from the failure of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) II and from public awareness of the development of a new generation of war-fighting systems. Forsberg traces the town-by-town growth of the anti-nuclear petition, which began in 1980 with the four-page document 'Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race,' and the referendum process that fanned out across the nation but remained largely ignored by the national media. Forsberg details the negative reaction by President Ronald Reagan's administration and the ensuing support on Capitol Hill, which passed a freeze resolution. This was followed just weeks later by congressional approval of the MX missile by an equally large margin-a vote that Forsberg says 'tore up the movement.' Soon afterward, President Reagan suddenly announced the Strategic Defense Initiative-a program that Forsberg critiques at the end of her interview-and he agreed to negotiate with the Soviet Union, which was a key goal of 'Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race.' The lasting impact of the nuclear-freeze movement, says Forsberg, has been a shift away from public protest and toward grassroots, long-term education. She concludes that this new 'institutionalized peace movement' will re-emerge more informed and cohesive than the last, with the determination to change 'the direction of the permanent peacetime policy of the United States.'

This course provides students with an introduction to the basic institutions of American government, especially as established in the constitution, and with an introduction to currents of thought among social scientists about the workings of U.S. politics. This is a communication intensive course. As such you are required to write at least 20 pages – that's the C.I. requirement – and participate in class discussions.

This class introduces students to innovative as well as classic approaches to studying U.S. government. The writing assignments will help you explore, through a variety of lenses, statis and change in the American political system over the last three decades. In the end each student will have a solid grounding in our national political institutions and processes, sharper reading and writing skills, and insight into approaching politics critically and analytically.

Andrei Gromyko served as Soviet foreign minister from 1957 to 1985. Beginning in 1943, when Soviet premier Joseph Stalin appointed the 34-year-old ambassador to Washington, Gromyko was an indispensable formulator of Kremlin policy toward the United States. Ultimately, he dealt with nine U.S. presidents. In this video segment, Gromyko chronicles the arms race, beginning in the 1950s under General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev. At the time, each superpower had the ability to inflict "unacceptable damage" on the other. Still, neither side acted to stop the arms race until General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev opened the new era in the mid eighties. Under the leadership of Gorbachev, Gromyko concludes, Soviets have embraced the "principle of rational sufficiency" and initiated unilateral steps to stop the arms race. The interview Gromyko conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age is a wide-ranging reflection on nuclear strategy, foreign policy, and superpower diplomacy during the four-and-a-half decades since the dawn of the nuclear age. Gromyko begins the interview with a look at the Potsdam Conference, at which U.S. president Harry S. Truman informed Soviet premier Joseph Stalin that an atomic bomb had successfully detonated. Truman was perplexed by the non-reaction of the Soviet leader, who then submitted a private order to accelerate the Russian bomb project. Gromyko remembers how, following the war, it felt, at age 37, to challenge the experienced architects of the Cold War and the policies they conceived: the Baruch Plan, the Truman Doctrine, and the Marshall Plan. He recalls that Soviet proposals to ban all nuclear weapons and to place strict controls on facilities pursuing nuclear energy were "categorically rejected." Western powers, Gromyko asserts, missed the opportunity to stop the arms race before it began. He points to "a drastic hardening" of foreign policy, citing former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill's 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech as an "open declaration of the Cold War." Gromyko reserves his strongest criticism for the "doctrine of intimidation," the United States' classified National Security Memorandum 68, which marked a dramatic shift in U.S.-Soviet relations. His description of the 1962 Caribbean crisis stands in stark contrast to U.S. officials' accounts of the same episode, known as the Cuban missile crisis. He provides detailed recollections of his conversation with President John F. Kennedy during this period, concluding that it was "probably the most difficult meeting I experienced in all my 48 years of meeting presidents of the United States." Gromyko moves ahead to the period of detente. His retelling of last-minute changes prior to the signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) I differs from that of national security adviser Henry Kissinger. Gromyko discusses the key Soviet objection to U.S. proposals during SALT II negotiations: the United States, which targeted the Soviet Union with forward bases around the world, demanded drastic reductions in the Soviet Union's principal deterrent-the heavy intercontinental ballistic missile. At Vladivostok in 1974, the two sides agreed on a basic framework for the SALT II Treaty, which was signed five years later. Reflecting on the trends he has observed during his long career as Soviet foreign minister, Gromyko sees more continuity than difference: each administration has tried to achieve military superiority, and the Soviet Union, always one step behind, has pressed to maintain "virtual parity" to safeguard its national interests. Much was achieved during detente, he recalls. While that term is no longer used, Gromyko sees parallels with-and holds out hope for-the current process of "deepening mutual understand and trust."

Harry McPherson was special counsel to U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1969. In this video segment, McPherson captures the thinking behind Johnson's internal stalemate: his anguish over the Vietnam War; his diminished political strength; his tension-filled relationship with newly appointed defense secretary Clark Clifford, who pushed to de-escalate; and Johnson's own inability to let go. In the interview he conducted for Vietnam: A Television History, 'Tet 1968,' McPherson provides an intimate portrait of that year in the White House. He describes conversations in which he participated; President Johnson's state of mind; and the impact on the administration as 'contributing nation' allies, Congress, advisers, and public opinion turned against the war. McPherson begins the interview by recalling the conflicted mood at the White House following the Tet Offensive. The optimism found in military cables and official information clashed with televised images showing the nation that the war was resulting in massive loss of human life and that a prisoner could be shot at point-blank range. McPherson's account also follows the internal politics of the Johnson administration from 1964 to 1966. President Johnson's domestic agenda was swallowed by a war he doubted privately; U.S. involvement in Vietnam deepened considerably even as public confidence eroded; Democrats suffered midterm-election defeats. Defense secretary Robert McNamara, who was a key architect of U.S. policy in Vietnam, became convinced that the war was unwinnable and resigned shortly after Tet. McPherson remembers a luncheon at which McNamara, his voice breaking, spoke of the 'crushing futility' of the air campaign that he 'had ultimate responsibility for.' The arrival of Clark Clifford as the new defense secretary set in motion a sea change of opinion in the White House-namely the recognition, finally, that continuing to escalate troop levels was doing nothing to stem North Vietnam's war of attrition with the United States. McPherson recounts his burgeoning alliance with Secretary Clifford, who stated, 'Together we'll get this country and our president out of this mess.' McPherson talks in great detail about the three-month process of writing the president's pivotal speech to be televised at the end of March. He recalls reworking drafts as the administration debated whether to continue, increase, or selectively arrest bombing as a prelude to peace talks a proposal that McPherson presented and that was eventually adopted. Given the change in policy, the speech required a new ending, which Johnson himself decided to write. On March 31, 1968, the president stunned the world with his announcement that he would not seek reelection. Reflecting on the Vietnam experience, McPherson probes the feasibility of fighting a limited war. He ends his interview with a personal sketch of President Johnson, a complex and tragic figure. McPherson considered him brilliant in 'sheer intellectual mental horsepower' and 'the smartest man I ever saw.'

This course will examine public opinion and assess its place in the American political system. The course will emphasize both how citizens' thinking about politics is shaped and the role of public opinion in political campaigns, elections, and government.

This course provides an introduction to the vast literature devoted to public opinion. In the next 12 weeks, we will survey the major theoretical approaches and empirical research in the field of political behavior (though we will only tangentially discuss political participation and voting). For the most part we will focus on American public opinion, though some of the work we will read is comparative in nature.