The Presidency and the National Security State

Gary Wills is a historian, journalist, and public intellectual.  He has written many books on politics, religion, political philosophy, popular culture, and American history.  In his writings on political, religious, and cultural figures—men as diverse as St. Augustine, John Wayne, and Abraham Lincoln—Gary Wills has clarified our understanding of  leadership, the ideas that shape  their words and actions, and the subtle connections that bind them to their community and culture.  All of these writings are characterized by the depth and breadth of Gary Will’s intellectual reach, his meticulous research, and the startlingly original interpretations that shake up received wisdom and conventional interpretations.

Gary Wills has won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (1993). He was awarded the National Medal for the Humanities in 1998. He has twice won the National Book Critics Award, including as a co winner for nonfiction in 1978 for Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. 

And in passing one should note that for his 1969 classic, Nixon Agonistes, The Crisis of the Self Made Man, he made President Nixon’s Enemy’s List.

 A professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University.  Wills is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books and other publications. A supporter of the candidacy of Barak Obama, he has recently criticized President Obama for his unexpected escalation of the war in Afghanistan. That escalation follows 8 years of  the Bush/ Cheney Presidency and its conduct of the  never ending War on Terrorism. These recent events are an appropriate time to reflect on what has brought us the present day--

to understand where we are and what we have become.  

In this new interview Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes historian Garry Wills for a discussion his new book, Bomb Power. Wills recalls the formative influences on his work as a writer including his Catholic faith and education; William Buckley and the editors of The National Review; the Vietnam War protests and the Civil Rights movement. Wills discusses the origins of one of his early books, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self Made Man. He explains the roots of his interest in leadership and reflects on other themes in his writing. Wills compares Barak Obama, Bill Clinton, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He explains why, after supporting the candidacy of Barak Obama, he has become a critic of the President. Wills then analyzes the impact of the atomic bomb on the U.S. constitutional system. After World War II, the national security intrusions on the Constitution were in the main not rescinded. The making of the atomic bomb and its subsequent maintenance and development set the pattern for consolidating a national security state characterized by an enlargement of Presidential power at the expense of other branches of government. Also there was a failure to restore constitutional safeguards. What followed was an increase in secrecy, waging of undeclared wars, decline of accountability, and an acceptance of the President as Commander in Chief. Wills concludes with an assessment of the possibilities for diminishing the national security state in the future.