The Cuban Missile Crisis in American memory : myths versus reality / Sheldon M. Stern.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stern, Sheldon M., author.

Series:

Stanford nuclear age series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962--Historiography.

Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962.

National Security Council (U.S.). Executive Committee.

National Security Council (U.S.).

Historiography.

United States--Foreign relations--Soviet Union.

United States.

International relations.

Soviet Union.

Soviet Union--Foreign relations--United States.

United States--Foreign relations--1961-1963.

Physical Description:

viii, 196 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Summary:

This book exposes the misconceptions, half-truths, and outright lies that have shaped the still dominant but largely mythical version of what happened in the White House during those harrowing two weeks of secret Cuban missile crisis deliberations. A half-century after the event it is surely time to demonstrate, once and for all, that RFK's Thirteen Days and the personal memoirs of other ExComm members cannot be taken seriously as historically accurate accounts of the ExComm meetings. Book jacket.

Contents:

History : from reel to real

The template : Robert F. Kennedy's Thirteen days

The real Robert Kennedy

The mythmaking of Robert McNamara

The forgotten voice of Dean Rusk

The erratic expertise of Llewellyn Thompson

The selective memory of McGeorge Bundy

The determined diplomacy of Adlai Stevenson

The Trollope ploy myth

Lyndon Johnson and the missile crisis : an unanticipated consequence?

Conclusion : leadership matters

Epilogue : What if?

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 175-188) and index.

ISBN:

9780804783767

0804783764

9780804783774

0804783772

OCLC:

785786668