Battle Lines
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“This is where my heart was plucked from my breast and dragged
along West Exec, hauled along every pebble and pothole. This was my
Heartbreak Hill, my Hanoi Hilton, this was… the staffing process.”
1
Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan
Viewed from the outside, the presidency often appears to be a monolithic organization clearly focused
around the views and wishes of the president. Occasionally we get a glimpse of the factions, battling
behind the scenes through memoirs or leaks to the media. Generally, scholars study the presidency as a
single institution, occasionally acknowledging the political and personal differences within the institution
but dismissing these battles as aberrations caused by personal ambition or political incompetence rather
than features of the basic institution.
The study of the writing of presidential speeches allows us to look inside the gates of the White
House to see conflicts developed and resolved. Jeff Tulis has described the speechwriting office as “an
institutional locus of policy making in the White House, not merely annex to policymaking,”
2
and Reagan
speechwriter Peggy Noonan confirmed this view, saying “speechwriting in the Reagan White House was
where the philosophical, ideological, and political tensions of the administration got worked out.”
3
While
most speechwriters are not directly involved in developing public policy (although speechwriters Ted
Sorensen and Mike Gerson served as key policy advisors) and political strategy, they work with those
offices through the process. This makes the speechwriting and revision process a unique opportunity to
watch a broad range of political forces at work inside the White House. Few people in government
witness the interaction of so many forces as the ideas behind public policy are fleshed out. The speech
clearance process has given many political and institutional interests places at the editing table and can
teach us a great deal about the differences between these interests.
While the speechwriting process is well-placed to teach us about White House politics, the paper trail
it leaves makes it a unique opportunity for scholars. The policy debates and political strategy sessions in
the White House are most often meetings in which little may be written down, the speech writing and
Convention