OnSpeechwriting

LBJ, Speechwriting and the Quest for Brevity

In my last post I lamented about writing coaches who encourage all writers to pare their work. Not all writing is created for the same purpose, I argued, and speeches need to be more expansive because audiences need time to hear – and interpret – the words spoken.

Now for a different view.

Robert Hardesty was a speechwriter for President Lyndon B. Johnson, whom I consider to be one of most under-appreciated Presidents in history. Hardesty, who passed away earlier this year, recalls in this article that Johnson had his own style and sensibilities when it came to speeches.

“We soon learned that LBJ had strong opinions about how a speech should be written. And brevity was a cardinal rule. For some reason, 'four' seemed to be a magic number.

“‘Four-letter words,’ he would say, ‘four-word sentences, and four-sentence paragraphs. Keep it simple. You’ve got to write it so that the charwoman who cleans the building across the street can understand it.’”

But it went further. Unless the President was delivering a major address, he wanted everything in 400 words or less.

As you might imagine, this was a difficult task. “You don’t just write a speech like that,” Hardesty says. “You chisel it. You carve it. And when you finish, you start cutting—and your most beautiful prose usually goes first.”

No speechwriter would voluntarily restrict themselves to a 400-word limit. “It wasn’t natural,” Hardesty says. “It went against a writer’s training … to be limited to four-letter words, four-word sentences, four-sentence paragraphs, and 400 words – that’s cruel.”

In the end, Hardesty said he and his fellow speechwriter, Will Sparks, came to appreciate the President’s mandate. Capping the comments at 400 words “forced you to organize your thoughts and disciplined you to write sparingly and clearly. If you did it right, you ended up with a little gem.”

But it also took its toll. He relates that one Friday, after a particularly difficult period, he finally had a long and free weekend ahead of him. No writing assignments. When a colleague asked how he was going to spend his time, Hardesty replied, “I’m going to go home and do nothing for 48 hours but think in long, convoluted sentences.”

 

 

Bush Speech Fails to Warm

OK. So I'm a stickler when it comes to the virtues of warming up an audience. Some don't. Some speakers launch right in by telling stories or relating funny anecdotes. I've done it myself.

BUT … and this is the key … I've only done that when the audience members already had a mostly favorable view of me. I didn't have to warm them up.

Compare that to the jarring beginning of President Bush's wooden address to the nation on Jan. 10. Already down in the polls – I mean, way down in the polls – with an electorate that thinks his strategy in Iraq has failed and that has no confidence in him as a leader – he starts off his "new way forward" speech in the most impersonal way possible.

 "THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Tonight in Iraq, the Armed Forces of the United States are engaged in a struggle that will determine the direction of the global war on terror -- and our safety here at home. The new strategy I outline tonight will change America's course in Iraq, and help us succeed in the fight against terror. "

Um. OK. That's kind of like trying to get a woman who you've stood up twice before at the wedding chapel to go through the whole shebang again by saying: "Tonight, thousands of couples are engaged to be married for a life of wedded bliss. The marriage I have outlined for us will change your life forever."

Maybe it will and maybe it won't. First, you'll have to get her to the chapel. President Bush, in many ways, was still standing on the front stoop, trying to plead his case twenty minutes after he started to a potential partner that never even opened the door.

And why would Americans open the door for him? He gave them no reasons to listen from the very beginning. The newscasters on CNN pointed out ahead of the speech that President Bush was giving this speech from the White House library in hopes of giving it a warmer feel. Too bad the words didn't match the setting.

Instead of the wooden recitation of the obvious that he did present, how about instead trying to curry a little favor with the American people by acknowledging up front that he knows they're concerned? That he knows American men and women are in harms way? That he realizes many American worry that the wheels have come off the freedom express and the whole thing is careening toward a deep chasm?

Acknowledging the audience's concerns is a good way to get from arms-folded stoicism to ears-opened engagement. Unfortunately, at the end of his 20 wooden minutes of prime time rhetoric (apologies to Aristotle), the bride was no closer to walking down the aisle than before.

Speechwriting 2.0 Episode 2

Download Speechwriting_2.0-2.mp3

Annan Delivers Model Farewell Speech

If you ever need to make an argument that not all powerful speeches are long, dull, dry affairs, take Kofi Annan's speech at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library for your main support.

   

UN Photo/Mark Garten

What an amazing amount of POP! the outgoing Secretary-General of the UN put into one small tidy package. The speech ran no more than 25 minutes and delivered a straight-forward punch at what he ultimately sees as the near-sighted (perhaps blind?) approach the U.S. is taking in foreign
affairs.

"You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart," Annan said. "Do you need it less today, and does it need you less, than 60 years ago? Surely not."

In less than 3,000 words, he outlined five lessons he's learned during his two terms as Secretary-General. Five lessons which lead him to the question above: Does the U.S. need the UN less than it did when President Harry Truman was in office?

The speech is also an excellent example of creating what I call "active listening" among the audience. He tells the audience in advance he has five points to make and then makes them, one by one, in a very direct fashion. Neither lesson is wordy, indicating to the audience that the speech won't take long. He inserts good quotes and research. He uses a good mix of rhetorical devices to enliven the language. And he leaves then with a hope and a prayer.

A great speech. And one, I might add, that should be mandatory reading for our high school students today.