Kennedy's Quest for Victory

Coinciding with the twenty-fifth anniversary of John F. Kennedy's death and the recent opening of historical documents, this timely volume of original essays offers a much-needed reassessment of the Kennedy years. Based on extensive research in archives and oral histories, the contributors explore the primary foreign policy assumptions and objectives of Kennedy and his advisers, and examine the importance of domestic politics, international change, personality and style, and historical lessons in shaping Kennedy's diplomacy. Discussing such key issues as the "New Atlantic Community," Kennedy's defense of American economic hegemony, the Cuban missile crisis, the covert war against Fidel Castro, and the Kennedy administration's involvement with the Middle East, China, Vietnam, and the establishment of the Peace Corps, the contributors assess the costs and consequences of Kennedy's policies. Together, the essays address the need to reckon with a past that has not always matched the selfless and self-satisfying image Americans have of their foreign policy and of Kennedy as their young, fallen hero who never had a chance.