Flash Points USA - America At War - Jean Folkerts
Flash Points USA - America At War - Jean Folkerts
Flash Points USA America At War - Jean Folkerts Interview (raw footage from interview with Jean Folkerts, a Professor of Media History at GWU, George Washington University) 01.01.53 Jean Folkerts is asked question about Abraham Lincoln, what lead him into war? Jean Folkerts says that it was the firing of Fort Sumter, that Lincoln was not the type of President eager to go into war, that he was "dragged" into the Civil War. That the public was divided in many ways, some people in the South wanted to have a division, to be separate from the North and there were many people Northerners and Southerners who were highly supportive of the Union. There was a great deal of "fear" associated with the stability of the country at that time. There were Northerners also who thought we need to put these Southerners down and finish this "once and for all"....The whole issue of slavery was there, there were abolitionists, people who wanted to deport all the africans to Liberia, there was not a unified opinion on slavery. 01.03.58 Break in tape, cameraman asks Folkerts not to lean to side 01.04.34 Jean Folkerts continues "It was keeping the Union together which was the final motivator I think for Lincoln. He was a country lawyer from Illinois, he was very committed to the Union and the sense of the country as a whole. His background didn't really lead him into being a "commander in chief", if anything he was un-prepared". Says Lincoln is remembered today "as the hero, the emancipator, as the person who ended slavery, Lincoln enjoys a great historical reputation." Folkerts continues by saying that he wasn't a very good commander in chief, that he had a lot of trouble with his generals, they were always fighting amongst each other. 01.05.58 Jean Folkerts says that the war helped Lincolns presidency, but since he was assassinated that that always helps your "hero" status, once he was assassinated he didn't have to finish his Presidency and didn't have to go through the re-construction of the country, he like Kennedy went out on the "high point". Says "If you die as a young President especially as Kennedy did, Kennedy never got tied up with the legacy of Vietnam even though he started it, because he was assassinated and was the young President hero and will always be that." Continues to say that "Kennedy has always escaped the legacy of Vietnam, because it really was Lyndon Johnson who did the build up of the troops and who is mostly identified with Vietnam." Kennedy had this aura of "great grace" and the ability to move internationally with a degree of class. 01.08.33 Jean Folkerts talks about Woodrow Wilson and says that World War One was a very controversial war, people thought it was a european war, that we were only going to war because the munitions manufacturers were going to make money off of it, Wilson had a vision of world peace. "Wilson's unfortunate legacy is that the League of Nations did not transcend the circumstances ending the war. Had that been a stronger legacy then Wilson might be looked in a more popular vein." Wilson was perceived as an intellectual, bookish, and not a popular President." 01.10.15 Jean Folkerts says "I think very few of these Presidents have experiences that really lead them to be good commanders in chief. They have to do more with their leadership qualities and the ability to talk to different kinds of people, take in different kinds of information, listen to different kinds of opinions, so that I think the personality rather than the experience is more important." Folkerts says Kennedy was known for bringing in a lot of intellectuals into government. She says "The good leaders can hear different opinions, can think about them and can understand sometimes that their initial impulse is not the correct impulse necessarily. That's the criteria for a "good leader" not necessarily a commander in chief, but I think that's what makes a good commander in chief rather than someone who's necessarily been a private or a sergeant or fought in a war. Although, once fighting in a war certainly gives you an understanding you don't have otherwise." 01.11.39 Interviewer asks Folkerts, who was the best war-time President? Jean Folkerts says "In many ways I think FDR was. Roosevelt had a lot of charisma, he got credited with ending the Depression, probably the war had more to do with ending the Depression than Franklin Delano Roosevelt did. But, there are many, many people in the generation just older than us that believe that Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved the country from poverty." Folkerts continues saying the WWII was the least controversial war, because after Pearl Harbor it was seen as a war to protect our country. 01.13.40 Speaking about President Harry Truman, saying that the White House reporters liked Truman, they saw him as a really honest, decent, straight forward person. However, Truman did not like publishers, they didn't like each other. People didn't trust Truman's relationship with the Russians. Speaks about Truman's decision to drop the Atomic bomb, that it was about "ending the war". Truman's legacy ended up being the Korean war and the cold war. Folkerts says that Truman doesn't stand out as a very charismatic President. 01.19.21 Jean Folkerts talks about air raids, fear in the country at that time of communists, red china, the russians. She says that President Truman's legacy suffers for the Atomic bomb, that he actually mentioned to reporters at the time that the atomic bomb was being considered for use in the Korean War. 01.23.03 Folkerts speaks about President Richard Nixon, that the Vietnam War pales by comparison of what ultimately brought Nixon down, that "Nixon's legacy is always going to be Watergate, so the fact that he ended the Vietnam war will be seen more I think as an evitable end to something that wasn't working, rather than some brilliant move of Nixon. Nixon does get credit for going into China and foreign policy." Continues to say that by the end of LBJ's Presidency, it was clear who ever was the next President was going to get out of Vietnam, it was so mired at that point, the public had turned sour, the public and the media turned sour, but they turned sour after the public officials turned sour. She says that the "public officials started coming back, Senators, Congressman, started coming back from Vietnam saying I don't think this is going to work, this isn't going to continue..... once that comes back than it starts to swell and you get a bigger public domain of opinion about it. So the public reaction against Vietnam by the time Nixon comes in that I think it's really considered inevitable that it will be ended." 01.25.00 Jean Folkerts states that the Vietnam War damages LBJ's legacy enormously, all of the retrospective looks at the Gulf of Tonkin and feeling that that was unnecessary, all the protests, "how many kids have you killed today" ..... The positive side to LBJ's legacy is Civil Rights."