Philip Nash
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2004
- ISBN:
- 9780198294689
- eISBN:
- 9780191601538
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198294689.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Kennedy's reliance on non‐nuclear assets and flexible response overshadowed his reliance on nuclear weapons, just as his nuclear restraint eclipsed recklessness. This is not surprising in view of the ...
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Kennedy's reliance on non‐nuclear assets and flexible response overshadowed his reliance on nuclear weapons, just as his nuclear restraint eclipsed recklessness. This is not surprising in view of the national security strategy Kennedy chose and the concerns about nuclear weapons he had. It is surprising, however, in light of the profound alarm with which Kennedy and most Americans viewed the Soviet threat; the frequency and intensity of the international crises Kennedy faced; and the widely acknowledged superiority of the US nuclear arsenal. Against this backdrop of threat, crisis, and strategic superiority, it is striking how small an active role nuclear weapons played in Kennedy's foreign policy.Less
Kennedy's reliance on non‐nuclear assets and flexible response overshadowed his reliance on nuclear weapons, just as his nuclear restraint eclipsed recklessness. This is not surprising in view of the national security strategy Kennedy chose and the concerns about nuclear weapons he had. It is surprising, however, in light of the profound alarm with which Kennedy and most Americans viewed the Soviet threat; the frequency and intensity of the international crises Kennedy faced; and the widely acknowledged superiority of the US nuclear arsenal. Against this backdrop of threat, crisis, and strategic superiority, it is striking how small an active role nuclear weapons played in Kennedy's foreign policy.
David R. Gibson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151311
- eISBN:
- 9781400842438
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151311.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
In October 1962, the fate of the world hung on the American response to the discovery of Soviet nuclear missile sites in Cuba. That response was informed by hours of discussions between John F. ...
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In October 1962, the fate of the world hung on the American response to the discovery of Soviet nuclear missile sites in Cuba. That response was informed by hours of discussions between John F. Kennedy and his top advisers. What those advisers did not know was that President Kennedy was secretly taping their talks, providing future scholars with a rare inside look at high-level political deliberation in a moment of crisis. This is the first book to examine these historic audio recordings from a sociological perspective. It reveals how conversational practices and dynamics shaped Kennedy's perception of the options available to him, thereby influencing his decisions and ultimately the outcome of the crisis. It looks not just at the positions taken by Kennedy and his advisers but how those positions were articulated, challenged, revised, and sometimes ignored. The book argues that Kennedy's decisions arose from the intersection of distant events unfolding in Cuba, Moscow, and the high seas with the immediate conversational minutia of turn-taking, storytelling, argument, and justification. In particular, the book shows how Kennedy's group told and retold particular stories again and again, sometimes settling upon a course of action only after the most frightening consequences were omitted or actively suppressed. This book presents an image of Kennedy's response to the Cuban missile crisis that is sharply at odds with previous scholarship, and has important implications for our understanding of decision making, deliberation, social interaction, and historical contingency.Less
In October 1962, the fate of the world hung on the American response to the discovery of Soviet nuclear missile sites in Cuba. That response was informed by hours of discussions between John F. Kennedy and his top advisers. What those advisers did not know was that President Kennedy was secretly taping their talks, providing future scholars with a rare inside look at high-level political deliberation in a moment of crisis. This is the first book to examine these historic audio recordings from a sociological perspective. It reveals how conversational practices and dynamics shaped Kennedy's perception of the options available to him, thereby influencing his decisions and ultimately the outcome of the crisis. It looks not just at the positions taken by Kennedy and his advisers but how those positions were articulated, challenged, revised, and sometimes ignored. The book argues that Kennedy's decisions arose from the intersection of distant events unfolding in Cuba, Moscow, and the high seas with the immediate conversational minutia of turn-taking, storytelling, argument, and justification. In particular, the book shows how Kennedy's group told and retold particular stories again and again, sometimes settling upon a course of action only after the most frightening consequences were omitted or actively suppressed. This book presents an image of Kennedy's response to the Cuban missile crisis that is sharply at odds with previous scholarship, and has important implications for our understanding of decision making, deliberation, social interaction, and historical contingency.
Angela M. Lahr
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195314489
- eISBN:
- 9780199872077
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195314489.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Evangelicals in the United States held ambivalent, sometimes contradictory, attitudes about Castro's Cuba that revealed the multifarious influences on evangelical religious and political identity. ...
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Evangelicals in the United States held ambivalent, sometimes contradictory, attitudes about Castro's Cuba that revealed the multifarious influences on evangelical religious and political identity. The Cuban Missile Crisis temporarily homogenized the nation but opened up the potential for conflict between premillennialists and others, sharpening Cold War developments already in place.Less
Evangelicals in the United States held ambivalent, sometimes contradictory, attitudes about Castro's Cuba that revealed the multifarious influences on evangelical religious and political identity. The Cuban Missile Crisis temporarily homogenized the nation but opened up the potential for conflict between premillennialists and others, sharpening Cold War developments already in place.
Kenneth Routon
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813034836
- eISBN:
- 9780813038858
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813034836.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
Despite its hard-nosed emphasis on the demystifying realism of Marxist–Leninist ideology, the political imagery of the Cuban revolution—and the state that followed—conjures up its own magical ...
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Despite its hard-nosed emphasis on the demystifying realism of Marxist–Leninist ideology, the political imagery of the Cuban revolution—and the state that followed—conjures up its own magical seductions and fantasies of power. This book shows how magic practices and political culture are entangled in Cuba in unusual and intimate ways. He describes not only how the monumentality of the state arouses magical sensibilities and popular images of its hidden powers, but also the ways in which revolutionary officialdom has, in recent years, tacitly embraced and harnessed vernacular fantasies of power to the national agenda. In this analysis, popular culture and the state are deeply entangled within a promiscuous field of power, taking turns siphoning the magic of the other in order to embellish their own fantasies of authority, control, and transformation. This study brings anthropology and history together by examining the relationship between ritual and state power in revolutionary Cuba, paying particular attention to the roles of memory and history in the construction and contestation of shared political imaginaries.Less
Despite its hard-nosed emphasis on the demystifying realism of Marxist–Leninist ideology, the political imagery of the Cuban revolution—and the state that followed—conjures up its own magical seductions and fantasies of power. This book shows how magic practices and political culture are entangled in Cuba in unusual and intimate ways. He describes not only how the monumentality of the state arouses magical sensibilities and popular images of its hidden powers, but also the ways in which revolutionary officialdom has, in recent years, tacitly embraced and harnessed vernacular fantasies of power to the national agenda. In this analysis, popular culture and the state are deeply entangled within a promiscuous field of power, taking turns siphoning the magic of the other in order to embellish their own fantasies of authority, control, and transformation. This study brings anthropology and history together by examining the relationship between ritual and state power in revolutionary Cuba, paying particular attention to the roles of memory and history in the construction and contestation of shared political imaginaries.
Antonio Lopez
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814765463
- eISBN:
- 9780814765487
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814765463.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This book uncovers an important, otherwise unrecognized century-long archive of literature and performance that reveals Cuban America as a space of overlapping Cuban and African diasporic ...
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This book uncovers an important, otherwise unrecognized century-long archive of literature and performance that reveals Cuban America as a space of overlapping Cuban and African diasporic experiences. It shows how Afro-Cuban writers and performers in the U.S. align Cuban black and mulatto identities, often subsumed in the mixed-race and postracial Cuban national imaginaries, with the material and symbolic blackness of African Americans and other Afro-Latinas/os. In the works of Alberto O'Farrill, Eusebia Cosme, Rómulo Lachatañeré, and others, Afro-Cubanness articulates the African diasporic experience in ways that deprive negro and mulato configurations of an exclusive link with Cuban nationalism. Instead, what is invoked is an “unbecoming” relationship between Afro-Cubans in the United States and their domestic black counterparts. The transformations in Cuban racial identity across the hemisphere, represented powerfully in the literary and performance cultures of Afro-Cubans in the Unuted States, provide the fullest account of a transnational Cuba, one in which the Cuban American emerges as Afro-Cuban-American, and the Latino as Afro-Latino.Less
This book uncovers an important, otherwise unrecognized century-long archive of literature and performance that reveals Cuban America as a space of overlapping Cuban and African diasporic experiences. It shows how Afro-Cuban writers and performers in the U.S. align Cuban black and mulatto identities, often subsumed in the mixed-race and postracial Cuban national imaginaries, with the material and symbolic blackness of African Americans and other Afro-Latinas/os. In the works of Alberto O'Farrill, Eusebia Cosme, Rómulo Lachatañeré, and others, Afro-Cubanness articulates the African diasporic experience in ways that deprive negro and mulato configurations of an exclusive link with Cuban nationalism. Instead, what is invoked is an “unbecoming” relationship between Afro-Cubans in the United States and their domestic black counterparts. The transformations in Cuban racial identity across the hemisphere, represented powerfully in the literary and performance cultures of Afro-Cubans in the Unuted States, provide the fullest account of a transnational Cuba, one in which the Cuban American emerges as Afro-Cuban-American, and the Latino as Afro-Latino.
Dalia Antonia Muller
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469631981
- eISBN:
- 9781469632001
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469631981.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
During the violent years of war marking Cuba’s final push for independence from Spain, over 3,000 Cuban émigrés, men and women, rich and poor, fled to Mexico. But more than a safe haven, Mexico was a ...
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During the violent years of war marking Cuba’s final push for independence from Spain, over 3,000 Cuban émigrés, men and women, rich and poor, fled to Mexico. But more than a safe haven, Mexico was a key site from which the expatriates helped launch a mobile and politically active Cuban diaspora around the Gulf of Mexico. Offering a new transnational vantage on Cuba’s struggle for nationhood, this book traces the stories of three hundred of these Cuban émigrés and explores the impact of their lives of exile, service to the revolution and independence, and circum-Caribbean solidarities. While not large in number, the émigrés excelled at community building, and their effectiveness in disseminating their political views across borders intensified their influence and inspired strong nationalistic sentiments across Latin America. Revealing that émigrés’ efforts were key to a Cuban Revolutionary Party program for courting Mexican popular and diplomatic support, the book shows how the relationship also benefited Mexican causes. Cuban revolutionary aspirations resonated with Mexican students, journalists, and others alarmed by the violation of constitutional rights and the increasing conservatism of the Porfirio Díaz regime. Finally, this book follows the émigrés’ return to Cuba after the Spanish-American War, and shows how their lives in the new republic were ineluctably shaped by their sojourn in Mexico.Less
During the violent years of war marking Cuba’s final push for independence from Spain, over 3,000 Cuban émigrés, men and women, rich and poor, fled to Mexico. But more than a safe haven, Mexico was a key site from which the expatriates helped launch a mobile and politically active Cuban diaspora around the Gulf of Mexico. Offering a new transnational vantage on Cuba’s struggle for nationhood, this book traces the stories of three hundred of these Cuban émigrés and explores the impact of their lives of exile, service to the revolution and independence, and circum-Caribbean solidarities. While not large in number, the émigrés excelled at community building, and their effectiveness in disseminating their political views across borders intensified their influence and inspired strong nationalistic sentiments across Latin America. Revealing that émigrés’ efforts were key to a Cuban Revolutionary Party program for courting Mexican popular and diplomatic support, the book shows how the relationship also benefited Mexican causes. Cuban revolutionary aspirations resonated with Mexican students, journalists, and others alarmed by the violation of constitutional rights and the increasing conservatism of the Porfirio Díaz regime. Finally, this book follows the émigrés’ return to Cuba after the Spanish-American War, and shows how their lives in the new republic were ineluctably shaped by their sojourn in Mexico.
ROBERT V. DODGE
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199857203
- eISBN:
- 9780199932597
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199857203.003.0021
- Subject:
- Economics and Finance, Behavioural Economics
This chapter presents a case study and analysis that serves as a review of ideas presented in the book. This study, particularly its review, may have historical significance as it is based on the ...
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This chapter presents a case study and analysis that serves as a review of ideas presented in the book. This study, particularly its review, may have historical significance as it is based on the responses of President Kennedy's advisors during the Cuban Missile Crisis: Theodore Sorensen and Robert McNamara, and Sergei Khrushchev, son of Nikita. The chapter begins by asserting that the Cuban Missile crisis was the most dangerous moment in human history. An introductory background section on the Cold War led to the thirteen-day crisis that began on October 16, 1962. This is followed by a day-by-day account of the crisis taken from various source documents. Following the case is an analysis, which employs recent definitions of players as “hawks,” “doves,”, and “owls.” Schelling's views on rational choice and game theory are considered the standard for wise decision-making and are used to evaluate the decisions made. The chapter reviews the material presented in the text. Ideas are brought up in context to refresh recollection and to apply them to various decisions during the crisis. This is an effective way to make the review interesting, as it continually combines it with observations from Sorensen and S. Khrushchev.Less
This chapter presents a case study and analysis that serves as a review of ideas presented in the book. This study, particularly its review, may have historical significance as it is based on the responses of President Kennedy's advisors during the Cuban Missile Crisis: Theodore Sorensen and Robert McNamara, and Sergei Khrushchev, son of Nikita. The chapter begins by asserting that the Cuban Missile crisis was the most dangerous moment in human history. An introductory background section on the Cold War led to the thirteen-day crisis that began on October 16, 1962. This is followed by a day-by-day account of the crisis taken from various source documents. Following the case is an analysis, which employs recent definitions of players as “hawks,” “doves,”, and “owls.” Schelling's views on rational choice and game theory are considered the standard for wise decision-making and are used to evaluate the decisions made. The chapter reviews the material presented in the text. Ideas are brought up in context to refresh recollection and to apply them to various decisions during the crisis. This is an effective way to make the review interesting, as it continually combines it with observations from Sorensen and S. Khrushchev.
Devyn Spence Benson
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469626727
- eISBN:
- 9781469626741
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469626727.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
Analyzing the ideology and rhetoric around race on the island and in south Florida during the early years of the Cuban revolution, Devyn Spence Benson argues that ideas, stereotypes, and ...
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Analyzing the ideology and rhetoric around race on the island and in south Florida during the early years of the Cuban revolution, Devyn Spence Benson argues that ideas, stereotypes, and discriminatory practices relating to racial difference persisted despite major state efforts to generate social equality. Drawing on Cuban and U.S. archival materials and face-to-face interviews, Benson examines 1960s government programs and campaigns against discrimination, showing how such programs frequently negated their efforts by reproducing racist images and idioms in revolutionary propaganda, cartoons, and school materials. Building on nineteenth-century discourses that imagined Cuba as a raceless space--“not blacks, not whites, only Cubans”--revolutionary leaders embraced a narrow definition of blackness, often seeming to suggest that Afro-Cubans had to discard their blackness to join the revolution. This was and remains a false dichotomy for many Cubans of color, Benson demonstrates. While some Afro-Cubans agreed with the revolution’s raceless sentiments, others found ways to use state rhetoric to demand additional reforms. Still others, finding a revolution that disavowed blackness unsettling and paternalistic, fought to insert black history and African culture into revolutionary nationalisms. Despite such efforts by Afro-Cubans and radical government-sponsored integration programs, racism has persisted throughout the revolution in subtle but lasting ways.Less
Analyzing the ideology and rhetoric around race on the island and in south Florida during the early years of the Cuban revolution, Devyn Spence Benson argues that ideas, stereotypes, and discriminatory practices relating to racial difference persisted despite major state efforts to generate social equality. Drawing on Cuban and U.S. archival materials and face-to-face interviews, Benson examines 1960s government programs and campaigns against discrimination, showing how such programs frequently negated their efforts by reproducing racist images and idioms in revolutionary propaganda, cartoons, and school materials. Building on nineteenth-century discourses that imagined Cuba as a raceless space--“not blacks, not whites, only Cubans”--revolutionary leaders embraced a narrow definition of blackness, often seeming to suggest that Afro-Cubans had to discard their blackness to join the revolution. This was and remains a false dichotomy for many Cubans of color, Benson demonstrates. While some Afro-Cubans agreed with the revolution’s raceless sentiments, others found ways to use state rhetoric to demand additional reforms. Still others, finding a revolution that disavowed blackness unsettling and paternalistic, fought to insert black history and African culture into revolutionary nationalisms. Despite such efforts by Afro-Cubans and radical government-sponsored integration programs, racism has persisted throughout the revolution in subtle but lasting ways.
Mariah Zeisberg
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157221
- eISBN:
- 9781400846771
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157221.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
This chapter analyzes presidential conduct by showing how presidents can augment their authority to engage in independent acts of war. Specifically, it assesses Kennedy's behavior in the Cuban ...
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This chapter analyzes presidential conduct by showing how presidents can augment their authority to engage in independent acts of war. Specifically, it assesses Kennedy's behavior in the Cuban Missile Crisis and Nixon's in the Cambodian bombing and incursion. It argues that the relational conception accommodates and explains the common intuition that the acts can be constitutionally distinguished. While both were responses to threats specified through a Cold War security order, the identification and management of threat in Kennedy's case was more deeply connected to the terms of that order than was Nixon's. The acts can also be distinguished on processual grounds. Kennedy's exercise of war power was more deeply connected to his skillful use of executive branch governance capacities.Less
This chapter analyzes presidential conduct by showing how presidents can augment their authority to engage in independent acts of war. Specifically, it assesses Kennedy's behavior in the Cuban Missile Crisis and Nixon's in the Cambodian bombing and incursion. It argues that the relational conception accommodates and explains the common intuition that the acts can be constitutionally distinguished. While both were responses to threats specified through a Cold War security order, the identification and management of threat in Kennedy's case was more deeply connected to the terms of that order than was Nixon's. The acts can also be distinguished on processual grounds. Kennedy's exercise of war power was more deeply connected to his skillful use of executive branch governance capacities.
David R. Gibson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151311
- eISBN:
- 9781400842438
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151311.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter begins with a brief sketch of the events that unfolded during the Cuban missile crisis. It describes the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or the ExComm, consisting ...
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This chapter begins with a brief sketch of the events that unfolded during the Cuban missile crisis. It describes the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or the ExComm, consisting of Kennedy's cabinet, their immediate subordinates, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a number of other top-level advisers. It then turns to Kennedy's secret recordings of many White House meetings and telephone conversations, which capture more than twenty hours of ExComm deliberations. Next, it sets out the book's purpose, namely is to undertake the first sustained analysis of the ExComm recordings. The goal is to mine the details of these discussions from a sociological perspective that views conversation as an achievement unto itself, and anything achieved through conversation as indelibly shaped by its rules, constraints, procedures, and vicissitudes.Less
This chapter begins with a brief sketch of the events that unfolded during the Cuban missile crisis. It describes the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, or the ExComm, consisting of Kennedy's cabinet, their immediate subordinates, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a number of other top-level advisers. It then turns to Kennedy's secret recordings of many White House meetings and telephone conversations, which capture more than twenty hours of ExComm deliberations. Next, it sets out the book's purpose, namely is to undertake the first sustained analysis of the ExComm recordings. The goal is to mine the details of these discussions from a sociological perspective that views conversation as an achievement unto itself, and anything achieved through conversation as indelibly shaped by its rules, constraints, procedures, and vicissitudes.
David R. Gibson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151311
- eISBN:
- 9781400842438
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151311.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter begins with some historical background, situating the ExComm, as a deliberative body, against the backdrop of the Bay of Pigs, where genuine deliberation was lacking. Then, it describes ...
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This chapter begins with some historical background, situating the ExComm, as a deliberative body, against the backdrop of the Bay of Pigs, where genuine deliberation was lacking. Then, it describes how the ExComm's meetings were organized and conducted. It starts with some remarks about the composition of the group, and then describes, in general terms, how the meetings were structured. Next, it describe Kennedy's singular role in the meetings, as sometimes-chair, sometimes-decider, and addressee of choice. Finally, it looks at the conversational data through an entirely different methodological lens, presenting some simple quantitative findings about who spoke, how they obtained the floor, and who was addressed—patterns that offer further evidence for the qualitative observations about authority and expertise while providing additional insight into the interactional styles of the different ExComm members.Less
This chapter begins with some historical background, situating the ExComm, as a deliberative body, against the backdrop of the Bay of Pigs, where genuine deliberation was lacking. Then, it describes how the ExComm's meetings were organized and conducted. It starts with some remarks about the composition of the group, and then describes, in general terms, how the meetings were structured. Next, it describe Kennedy's singular role in the meetings, as sometimes-chair, sometimes-decider, and addressee of choice. Finally, it looks at the conversational data through an entirely different methodological lens, presenting some simple quantitative findings about who spoke, how they obtained the floor, and who was addressed—patterns that offer further evidence for the qualitative observations about authority and expertise while providing additional insight into the interactional styles of the different ExComm members.
David R. Gibson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151311
- eISBN:
- 9781400842438
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151311.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter focuses on discussions about the initial U.S. response to the discovery of Soviet missiles. It argues that the choice of the blockade was only possible once a particular objection to ...
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This chapter focuses on discussions about the initial U.S. response to the discovery of Soviet missiles. It argues that the choice of the blockade was only possible once a particular objection to that very plan was suppressed, namely that it would give the Soviets a chance to complete work on at least some of the missiles, as a result of which the United States might subsequently find itself attacking operational missiles that could be launched (perhaps without authorization) against U.S. cities. This suppression took time, however, time that the ExComm had because it was able to postpone a decision so long as its deliberations were kept secret.Less
This chapter focuses on discussions about the initial U.S. response to the discovery of Soviet missiles. It argues that the choice of the blockade was only possible once a particular objection to that very plan was suppressed, namely that it would give the Soviets a chance to complete work on at least some of the missiles, as a result of which the United States might subsequently find itself attacking operational missiles that could be launched (perhaps without authorization) against U.S. cities. This suppression took time, however, time that the ExComm had because it was able to postpone a decision so long as its deliberations were kept secret.
David R. Gibson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151311
- eISBN:
- 9781400842438
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151311.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter examines talk about how to enforce the blockade, in terms of which ships to stop and which to allow through. Because the blockade was, from the start, ill suited for the purpose of ...
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This chapter examines talk about how to enforce the blockade, in terms of which ships to stop and which to allow through. Because the blockade was, from the start, ill suited for the purpose of forcing the Soviets to withdraw their missiles, storytelling about the consequences of stopping various ships rarely connected those actions to the larger objective. Furthermore, stories about the future were largely supplanted by elaborate justifications for not acting, one peculiarity of which was that the ExComm sometimes seemed to lose sight of whom it primarily had to convince. Moreover, the ExComm did not so much decide not to intercept the Bucharest, a tanker which was Kennedy's best chance to set an early example, as it failed to decide anything at all, but this indecision was transformed into a decision by the course of events.Less
This chapter examines talk about how to enforce the blockade, in terms of which ships to stop and which to allow through. Because the blockade was, from the start, ill suited for the purpose of forcing the Soviets to withdraw their missiles, storytelling about the consequences of stopping various ships rarely connected those actions to the larger objective. Furthermore, stories about the future were largely supplanted by elaborate justifications for not acting, one peculiarity of which was that the ExComm sometimes seemed to lose sight of whom it primarily had to convince. Moreover, the ExComm did not so much decide not to intercept the Bucharest, a tanker which was Kennedy's best chance to set an early example, as it failed to decide anything at all, but this indecision was transformed into a decision by the course of events.
David R. Gibson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151311
- eISBN:
- 9781400842438
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151311.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter is concerned with the discussions about Khrushchev's two proposals: to remove the missiles in return for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba, and to remove them on the condition that the ...
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This chapter is concerned with the discussions about Khrushchev's two proposals: to remove the missiles in return for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba, and to remove them on the condition that the United States agreed to withdraw NATO Jupiter missiles in Turkey. Here there was a sharp difference of opinion, with Kennedy certain that Khrushchev would never accept a deal that was limited to the no-invasion pledge but his advisers equally convinced that it was worth trying. This difference of opinion rarely translated into overt conflict, however, in part because each side allowed the other to tell its story without objection. But eventually a decision had to be made, and Kennedy gave in, only to subsequently sign off on an informal message to Khrushchev that offered a secret concession on the Jupiters in spite of fears that the alliance could unravel as a result.Less
This chapter is concerned with the discussions about Khrushchev's two proposals: to remove the missiles in return for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba, and to remove them on the condition that the United States agreed to withdraw NATO Jupiter missiles in Turkey. Here there was a sharp difference of opinion, with Kennedy certain that Khrushchev would never accept a deal that was limited to the no-invasion pledge but his advisers equally convinced that it was worth trying. This difference of opinion rarely translated into overt conflict, however, in part because each side allowed the other to tell its story without objection. But eventually a decision had to be made, and Kennedy gave in, only to subsequently sign off on an informal message to Khrushchev that offered a secret concession on the Jupiters in spite of fears that the alliance could unravel as a result.
David R. Gibson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151311
- eISBN:
- 9781400842438
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151311.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Reflecting on the decision-making process after the Cuban missile crisis was over, President Kennedy famously observed that “the essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the ...
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Reflecting on the decision-making process after the Cuban missile crisis was over, President Kennedy famously observed that “the essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer—often, indeed, to the decider himself ... There will always be the dark and tangled stretches in the decision-making process—mysterious even to those who may be most intimately involved.” This chapter summarizes theoretical and empirical arguments with an eye toward making sense of this striking claim, wherein Kennedy appears to admit that even he felt baffled by what happened in the White House during his presidency. It then discusses the peculiar fact that, at a conference of former ExComm members and academics held twenty-five years after the crisis, the former were forced to admit that their deliberative process was far from systematic. The academics were baffled, but the findings of this book provide an explanation, involving the strange twists and turns that the deliberative process undergoes when it is conducted aloud, subject to the whims of other people and the demands and sensitivities of the conversational machinery that makes the whole thing work.Less
Reflecting on the decision-making process after the Cuban missile crisis was over, President Kennedy famously observed that “the essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer—often, indeed, to the decider himself ... There will always be the dark and tangled stretches in the decision-making process—mysterious even to those who may be most intimately involved.” This chapter summarizes theoretical and empirical arguments with an eye toward making sense of this striking claim, wherein Kennedy appears to admit that even he felt baffled by what happened in the White House during his presidency. It then discusses the peculiar fact that, at a conference of former ExComm members and academics held twenty-five years after the crisis, the former were forced to admit that their deliberative process was far from systematic. The academics were baffled, but the findings of this book provide an explanation, involving the strange twists and turns that the deliberative process undergoes when it is conducted aloud, subject to the whims of other people and the demands and sensitivities of the conversational machinery that makes the whole thing work.
Cindy Hahamovitch
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691102689
- eISBN:
- 9781400840021
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691102689.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter explores the reasons for the mass strikes among the guestworkers laboring in Florida's cane fields during the 1960s. It argues that these strikes were caused by a confluence of two ...
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This chapter explores the reasons for the mass strikes among the guestworkers laboring in Florida's cane fields during the 1960s. It argues that these strikes were caused by a confluence of two seemingly unrelated events: the Cuban Revolution and Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. Like the collision of two weather systems, these transformations—a revolution and a reform program—brought unintended but devastating changes to working conditions in Florida's fields. What had been a hard but coveted opportunity for poor black men from the Caribbean became, as Johnson's Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz put it only somewhat hyperbolically, “the worst job in the world.”Less
This chapter explores the reasons for the mass strikes among the guestworkers laboring in Florida's cane fields during the 1960s. It argues that these strikes were caused by a confluence of two seemingly unrelated events: the Cuban Revolution and Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. Like the collision of two weather systems, these transformations—a revolution and a reform program—brought unintended but devastating changes to working conditions in Florida's fields. What had been a hard but coveted opportunity for poor black men from the Caribbean became, as Johnson's Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz put it only somewhat hyperbolically, “the worst job in the world.”
Colin S. Gray
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199608638
- eISBN:
- 9780191731754
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199608638.003.0012
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
In examining the Soviet‐American Cold War of 1945–91, Colin Gray posits seven categories of context: political, sociocultural, economic, technological, geographical‐geopolitical, historical, and ...
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In examining the Soviet‐American Cold War of 1945–91, Colin Gray posits seven categories of context: political, sociocultural, economic, technological, geographical‐geopolitical, historical, and military‐strategic. He also divides the Cold War into separate periods, defined by what he considers its three strategically ‘decisive moments’: the outbreak of, and the American‐led reaction to, the war in Korea (June 1950); the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962); and the fall of the Soviet Union (December 1989). His analysis leads to the inescapable conclusion that the Cold War was a struggle that the Soviet Union was never likely to win, at least not by any reasonable definition of victory. Gray deliberately weights political over military considerations, and grand strategy over military strategy. The strategic experience of the Cold War supports his main hypothesis: namely, that strategy has eternal and universal characteristics.Less
In examining the Soviet‐American Cold War of 1945–91, Colin Gray posits seven categories of context: political, sociocultural, economic, technological, geographical‐geopolitical, historical, and military‐strategic. He also divides the Cold War into separate periods, defined by what he considers its three strategically ‘decisive moments’: the outbreak of, and the American‐led reaction to, the war in Korea (June 1950); the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962); and the fall of the Soviet Union (December 1989). His analysis leads to the inescapable conclusion that the Cold War was a struggle that the Soviet Union was never likely to win, at least not by any reasonable definition of victory. Gray deliberately weights political over military considerations, and grand strategy over military strategy. The strategic experience of the Cold War supports his main hypothesis: namely, that strategy has eternal and universal characteristics.
Emily A. Maguire
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037479
- eISBN:
- 9780813042329
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037479.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
In the wake of independence from Spain in 1898, Cuba's intellectual avant-garde struggled to cast their country as a modern nation. They grappled with the challenges presented by the postcolonial ...
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In the wake of independence from Spain in 1898, Cuba's intellectual avant-garde struggled to cast their country as a modern nation. They grappled with the challenges presented by the postcolonial situation in general and with the location of blackness within a narrative of Cuban-ness in particular. This study examines how a cadre of writers reimagined the nation and re-valorized Afro-Cuban culture through a textual production that incorporated elements of the ethnographic with the literary. To explore the potential of this encounter between established literary forms, developing ethnographic methodologies, and popular culture, the book analyzes the work of four Cuban writers: Fernando Ortiz, Alejo Carpentier, Nicolás Guillén, and Lydia Cabrera. Singling out the work of Lydia Cabrera as emblematic of the experimentation with genre that characterized the age, the text constructs a series of counterpoints which place Cabrera's work in dialogue with that of her Cuban contemporaries. As it diagnoses an “ethnographic spirit” in the work of these writers, the study explores the experimental sensibility of the moment through a comparative analysis of the structural mechanics of their texts, the constructions of blackness in which illuminate the dynamic, sometimes contradictory dialogue around race in republican Cuba. A final chapter on Cabrera and African American writer Zora Neale Hurston widens the scope to locate Cuban texts within a hemispheric movement to represent black culture.Less
In the wake of independence from Spain in 1898, Cuba's intellectual avant-garde struggled to cast their country as a modern nation. They grappled with the challenges presented by the postcolonial situation in general and with the location of blackness within a narrative of Cuban-ness in particular. This study examines how a cadre of writers reimagined the nation and re-valorized Afro-Cuban culture through a textual production that incorporated elements of the ethnographic with the literary. To explore the potential of this encounter between established literary forms, developing ethnographic methodologies, and popular culture, the book analyzes the work of four Cuban writers: Fernando Ortiz, Alejo Carpentier, Nicolás Guillén, and Lydia Cabrera. Singling out the work of Lydia Cabrera as emblematic of the experimentation with genre that characterized the age, the text constructs a series of counterpoints which place Cabrera's work in dialogue with that of her Cuban contemporaries. As it diagnoses an “ethnographic spirit” in the work of these writers, the study explores the experimental sensibility of the moment through a comparative analysis of the structural mechanics of their texts, the constructions of blackness in which illuminate the dynamic, sometimes contradictory dialogue around race in republican Cuba. A final chapter on Cabrera and African American writer Zora Neale Hurston widens the scope to locate Cuban texts within a hemispheric movement to represent black culture.
Emily A. Maguire
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780813037479
- eISBN:
- 9780813042329
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813037479.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
The overthrow of Cuban president and dictator Fulgencio Batista in January of 1959, and the triumph of the 26 of July Movement and its charismatic leader Fidel Castro initiated a radical ...
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The overthrow of Cuban president and dictator Fulgencio Batista in January of 1959, and the triumph of the 26 of July Movement and its charismatic leader Fidel Castro initiated a radical restructuring of many aspects of Cuban society. In the space of two years, both the makeup of the Cuban body politic and the idea of what Cuba underwent when it went through an abrupt, dramatic transformation. Even as the possibility of a single coherent national project became all the more vexed, ethnographic literature was a part of this dramatic transformation of the Cuban imaginary. With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the island—and its writers—entered a new moment of national re-definition. This epilogue traces the shifts in the relationship between the ethnographic and the literary and the discourse surrounding blackness in Cuba in the wake of the Revolution. The leaders of the Revolution declared that it had eradicated racism; to talk about racial difference was to focus unnecessarily on divisions of the past. As this revolutionary rhetoric closed the space for discussing race, the space for discursive encounter also changed. Among writers on the island, encounters between ethnography and literature, while still innovative, moved in ways that bolstered the larger narrative of the Cuban Revolution. In an effort to contest the Revolutionary cooptation of earlier texts, Cabrera, in exile in Miami, returned to a more conservative—and more nostalgic—form of ethnographic narration.Less
The overthrow of Cuban president and dictator Fulgencio Batista in January of 1959, and the triumph of the 26 of July Movement and its charismatic leader Fidel Castro initiated a radical restructuring of many aspects of Cuban society. In the space of two years, both the makeup of the Cuban body politic and the idea of what Cuba underwent when it went through an abrupt, dramatic transformation. Even as the possibility of a single coherent national project became all the more vexed, ethnographic literature was a part of this dramatic transformation of the Cuban imaginary. With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the island—and its writers—entered a new moment of national re-definition. This epilogue traces the shifts in the relationship between the ethnographic and the literary and the discourse surrounding blackness in Cuba in the wake of the Revolution. The leaders of the Revolution declared that it had eradicated racism; to talk about racial difference was to focus unnecessarily on divisions of the past. As this revolutionary rhetoric closed the space for discussing race, the space for discursive encounter also changed. Among writers on the island, encounters between ethnography and literature, while still innovative, moved in ways that bolstered the larger narrative of the Cuban Revolution. In an effort to contest the Revolutionary cooptation of earlier texts, Cabrera, in exile in Miami, returned to a more conservative—and more nostalgic—form of ethnographic narration.
Iraida H. López
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780813061030
- eISBN:
- 9780813051307
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813061030.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Since 1979, when travel to Cuba from the United States opened up, thousands of Cuban Americans have visited the island on a short-term basis to reunite with their families and reacquaint themselves ...
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Since 1979, when travel to Cuba from the United States opened up, thousands of Cuban Americans have visited the island on a short-term basis to reunite with their families and reacquaint themselves with their birthplace. Such topics as outbound migration and the adaptation process of Cubans in the host society have received considerable attention in academia, while the subject of return as it pertains to Cuban Americans has been largely neglected. Exclusively devoted to the subject, this book explores narratives on the return to Cuba of individuals of the so-called one-and-a-half generation (those who left Cuba as children or adolescents). Some of the narratives feature a physical return; others depict a metaphorical or vicarious going back through fictional characters or childhood reminiscences. Among the writers and artists addressed are Ruth Behar, María Brito, Carlos Eire, Cristina García, Ana Mendieta, Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Ernesto Pujol, and Achy Obejas. Through a critical reading of their work, the book highlights the affective ties as well as the tensions underlying the relationships between the authors and their native country. Also explored is a complementary subject, the portrayal of returnees in Cuban literature and popular arts on the island.Less
Since 1979, when travel to Cuba from the United States opened up, thousands of Cuban Americans have visited the island on a short-term basis to reunite with their families and reacquaint themselves with their birthplace. Such topics as outbound migration and the adaptation process of Cubans in the host society have received considerable attention in academia, while the subject of return as it pertains to Cuban Americans has been largely neglected. Exclusively devoted to the subject, this book explores narratives on the return to Cuba of individuals of the so-called one-and-a-half generation (those who left Cuba as children or adolescents). Some of the narratives feature a physical return; others depict a metaphorical or vicarious going back through fictional characters or childhood reminiscences. Among the writers and artists addressed are Ruth Behar, María Brito, Carlos Eire, Cristina García, Ana Mendieta, Gustavo Pérez Firmat, Ernesto Pujol, and Achy Obejas. Through a critical reading of their work, the book highlights the affective ties as well as the tensions underlying the relationships between the authors and their native country. Also explored is a complementary subject, the portrayal of returnees in Cuban literature and popular arts on the island.
