Journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9916 Book Reviews Influence from abroad: Foreign voices, the media and U.S. public opinion Danny Hayes and Matt Guardino Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2013 $27.99 (cloth), $22.00 (ebook), $85.00 (hard), 197 pp. his book overthrows the commonly held thesis that domestic elites are the primary inluence drivers behind mass public opinion during international con- lict. he exercise in self-restraint to show a united front in international relations has been the conventional wisdom for nearly 70 years in U.S. foreign policy relations. Michigan Republican Arthur Vandenberg, chair of the Foreign Rela- tions Committee in postwar 1947, called on his Senate colleagues to lend their support for the Truman Doctrine eforts to challenge Soviet imperialism overseas and said, “we must stop partisan politics at the water’s edge.” hat conventional wisdom was in dramatic form in Washington from just ater Labor Day 2002 through 19 March 2003 when Democratic Party opposition to the Bush-Cheney military response to Iraq was all but on silent mode. Bush White House Chief of Staf Andrew Card explained the post-Labor Day timing of the strategic communications campaign, known as the White House Iraq Group (aka White House Information Group or WHIG), this way: “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August” (Bumiller, 2002). “A centerpiece of the strategy, White House oicials said, is to use Mr. Bush’s speech on 11 Sept. to help move Amer- icans toward support of action against Iraq, which could come early next year.” Couching the Iraq military invasion in the rally-round-the-lag syndrome of post-September 11, the bipartisan sup- port for a military option against Iraq caught on in short order and with little notable dissent. On 11 October 2002, a three-quarter majority of the Senate, including many Democrats (77-23), notably 2008 presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, authorized the use of military force against Iraq. his united front created an information vacuum that was illed by foreign elite voices opposed to the Bush administration in substance or procedure; even kingpins in the Senate were given a stage that did not reverber- ate. he book devotes an entire chapter, “Byrd Gets No Word,” to Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) and his eloquent, but futile, quest to amplify Democratic Party dissent: “Listen. You can hear a pin drop” (p. 51). An interesting footnote is that Hayes and Guardino show that the Department of Defense attempt to use military analysts to make the case for war in Iraq “did not appear to pay signiicant dividends for the Bush Administration, at least on network television before the war” (p. 40). Many of the foreign voices that impacted domestic opinion are long gone from the headlines today. hey E6 Journal of Communication 65 (2015) E6–E8 © 2015 International Communication Association