ABSTRACT
A review of the Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush presidential administrations' responses to terrorism and employment of national security discourse support's the claim that terrorism, in and through discourse, has been and is made a site of statecraft practice. Under President Reagan's administration, Cold War rhetoric informed US foreign policy responses in order to manipulate and control public opinion and approval, ensuring that the threat to national security was emphasized. Although President Carter's administration was the first to deal with terrorism directly aimed at the US, it is useful to inspect briefly the responses crafted by President Nixon on terrorism, specifically regarding a string of airline hijackings in 1970. Based on a review of presidential rhetoric since World War II, Nixon was the first president to categorize specific events as terrorism. The policies and discourse initiated by President Nixon continued through Ford's administration and were intensified in President Carter's response to the Iranian hostage crisis.
