Chester Pach

Recent News

Education

• Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University
• A.B. from Brown University

Research

• United States; 20th Century
• International; Politics, Media, and Popular Culture

Chester Pach is Associate Professor in the Department of History. He specializes in the history of U.S. foreign relations and recent U.S. history. His research has focused on U.S. involvement in the Cold War and the Vietnam War as well as the Eisenhower, Johnson, and Reagan presidencies. He has a particular interest in television coverage of international issues and the intersections between politics, popular culture, and international history.

Professor Pach has served on several committees of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. He is currently a member of the Editorial Board of H-DIPLO, a part of the H-NET Electronic Discussion Network.

Presentations

In 1995, he was a Fulbright Professor at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. He is the winner of the Outstanding Graduate Faculty Award for 2005-06 and gave the address at the Graduate Commencement on June 9, 2006.

He gave a presentation entitled "'Our Worst Enemy Seems to Be the Press': TV News, the Nixon Administration, and U.S. Withdrawal from Vietnam, 1969-73," at a conference on "The Politics of Troop Withdrawal" in June 2008 at the Miller Center of the University of Virginia. See Professor Pach give his presentation.

He delivered the keynote address at the 20th anniversary of the Ohio University-Leipzig University international partnership in June 2012. During a recent trip to Leipzig, he gave a presentation about Ronald Reagan and the Berlin Wall.

Publications

He is completing The Presidency of Ronald Reagan in the American Presidency Series for the University Press of Kansas. He is also writing a book entitled The First Television War: TV News, the White House, and Vietnam. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation, and the Baker Fund of Ohio University to support his research and writing.

“‘Our Worst Enemy Seems to Be the Press’: TV News, the Nixon Administration, and U.S. Withdrawal from Vietnam, 1969-1973,” in Diplomatic History 34 (June 2010): 555-65.

“‘We Need to Get a Better Story to the American People’: LBJ, the Progress Campaign, and the Vietnam War on Television” in Selling War in a Media Age: The Presidency and Public Opinion in the American Century (University Press of Florida, 2010).

"Ike, War and Peace in Korea: Lessons for Iraq?" in The Ripon Forum [PDF] (April/May 2008):25-26.

Presidential Profiles: The Johnson Years (Facts on File, 2006)

"Thinking Globally and Acting Locally" in The Eisenhower Administration, the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006.)

"Top Gun, Toughness, and Terrorism: Some Reflections on the Elections of 1980 and 2004," in Diplomatic History 28 (September 2004): 549-62.

"'Rock 'n' Roll Is Here to Stay': Using Popular Music to Teach About Dating and Youth Culture from Elvis to the Beatles," in OAH Magazine of History 8 (July 2004): 44-47.

"The United States and the Beginning of the Cold War, 1945-1952" and "United States Foreign Relations during the Eisenhower Presidency, 1953-1961" in American Foreign Relations Since 1600: A Guide to the Literature (ABC-CLIO, 2003)

"Sticking to His Guns: Reagan and National Security," in The Reagan Presidency: Pragmatic Conservatism and Its Legacies (University Press of Kansas, 2003)

"The War on Television: TV News, the Johnson Administration, and Vietnam," in A Companion to the Vietnam War (Blackwell Publishers, 2002)

"Television," in Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy 2d ed. (New York: Scribners, 2002)

"Tet on TV: U.S. Nightly News Reporting and Presidential Policy Making," in 1968: The World Transformed (Cambridge University Press, 1998)

The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, rev.ed. (University Press of Kansas, 1991)

Arming the Free World: The Origins of the United States Military Assistance Program, 1945-1950 (University of North Carolina Press, 1991

Teaching

Chest Pach teaches courses in U.S. foreign relations and recent U.S. history. His courses include:

• HIST 316B: History of U.S. Foreign Relations, 1914-1945
• HIST 3164: History of U.S. Involvement in World Affairs, 1945-Present
• HIST 3220: 1960s in US: Decade of Controversy
• HIST 6000: Seminar in United States History (Foreing Relations)
• HIST 6901: Colloquium in U.S. History (Foreing Relations)