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President Reagan's Rhetorical War Against Nicaraugua, 1981-1987, Donald Morton
President Reagan's Rhetorical War Against Nicaraugua, 1981-1987, Donald Morton
Masters Theses & Specialist Projects
The Reagan administration launched a two term campaign to win support for the Contra rebels fighting Nicaragua. The rhetorical war began in secrecy and ended in scandal. With Reagan's reputation as a "great communicator" and the priority he assigned to the Contra cause it seemed surprising to find virtually nothing on the topic in a search of the communication journals through mid 1992.
The central research question of this thesis is whether President Reagan used rhetorical strategies and similar depictions to other presidents in his prowar rhetoric against Nicaragua. A common theme of war rhetoric is the dehumanizing of the …