The View from Xanadu: William Randolph Hearst and United States Foreign Policy

The Hearst newspaper chain, at its peak, one of the largest in the history of American journalism, was a mouthpiece for William Randolph Hearst. He expounded his views on national and world events in editorials, becoming a major and ever-present figure in the political arena. Despise and hate him as they might, American presidents and politicians could not ignore him, even during his later years. This book evaluates Hearst's attitudes toward US foreign policy issues and the effect of his views on national foreign policy in the first half of the 20th century. Hearst is usually remembered as a flag-waving, jingoistic patriot who was anti-British, anti-French, anti-Oriental - anti-almost everything except the United States. He was regarded as an admirer of Hitler and Mussolini, and a staunch isolationist who believed that minimizing American contact with the rest of the world was the only way to achieve security. Using all the journalistic apparatus at his disposal, Hearst trumpeted his views about the conduct of his own nations and peoples and, more particularly about the conduct of his own country in relation to them.