Who Writes the President’s Speeches?

The president of the United States must be an orator. The president gives an annual address on the State of the Union and speaks at the inauguration and other special events. 【小题1】 In his Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln spoke fewer than 300 words, but those words have become memorable. Franklin D. Roosevelt set the standard for later presidents in his 30 “fireside chats”, which aired on the radio and dealt with the Great Depression and World War II.

Beginning with George Washington, American presidents often sought assistance with the content and wording of their speeches, although they may have done the writing themselves.

【小题2】 The first President to assign the task of speech-writing to an assistant, however, was Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929), the laconic president whose nickname was “Silent Cal”. The assistant’s name was Judson Welliver. (Today, there is a bipartisan organization for former presidential speech - writers, the Judson Welliver Society.) Since the middle of the twentieth century, the role of such speech-writers has expanded; the Executive branch now includes an Office of Speech-writing as part of its Department of Communications, Speech-writing and Media Affairs.

【小题3】 In his inaugural speech, John F. Kennedy urged Americans “Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country”. George H. W. Bush, in his inaugural speech, imagined community volunteers and organizations as “a thousand points of light”. 【小题4】

The process of drafting a presidential speech is long and complicated, and different presidents make different contributions. Some write large parts of the text and invite criticism from assistants and advisers; others ask speech-writers to draft a speech in its entirety, and then they edit it to their own satisfaction. 【小题5】 The final product, whatever the process, must “sound” like the person who speaks the words. As one speech writer recently said, “Our concern was not to writer a good speech, but to write a good speech that is also his speech.”