Review: United States: The Kennedy Tapes
| Date | 01 June 1998 |
| Published date | 01 June 1998 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209805300213 |
| Author | Robert Bothwell |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
UNITED
STATES
American
government
in
crisis
-
Reviews
by
Robert
Bothwell
certainly
the
most
serious
con-
University
of
Toronto
frontation
of
the
cold
war
and
an
issue
in which,
briefly,
nuclear
THE
KENNEDY
TAPES
destruction
hung
in
the balance.
Inside
the
White
House
during
the
Deterrence,
according
to
this
evi-
Cuban
missile
crisis
dence,
did
work,
not
on
the United
Edited
by
Ernest
R.
May
and
Philip
States
military,
but
on
the
people
Zelikow
who
counted
-
President
Kennedy,
Cambridge
MA:
Balknap
Press
of
Har-
some
members
of
his
cabinet,
and
vard
University
Press,
1997,
xv,
728
pp,
some
of
his
elder
statesmen.
US$35.00
As
Alexander
Fursenko
and
Tim-
othy
Naftali show
in
the
parallel
H
istorians
must
daily
give
book,
One
Hell
ofa
Gamble
thanks
for
the
end
of
the
cold
(reviewed
in
the
autumn
issue
of
war.
The
collapse
of
the
Soviet
InternationalJournal),
the
Soviet
Union
and
the
release
of
some
of
its
leader,
Nikita
Khrushchev,
also
had
secrets,
the
expiry
of
official
interest
the
intelligence
and
courage
to
real-
in
entombed
data
in
the
United
ize
that
his game
of
nuclear
bluff
States,
even
modest
progress
at
the
was
up
and
that
a
setback
over
Cuba
Quai d'Orsay,
all
have
resulted
in
a
was
less
awful
than
universal
nuclear
much
expanded
understanding
of
war.
the
events
and
processes
of
the
cold
war.
Perhaps
the
biggest
haul
was
THE
COMMANDING
HEIGHTS
made
by
two
American
scholars,
The
battle
between
government
and
Ernest
May
and
Philip
Zelikow, marketplace
that
is
reshaping
the
when
they
attuned
their
ears
to
the
modern
world
grunts and
squawks
of
John
E
Daniel
Yergin
and
Joseph
Stanislaw
Kennedy's
tape
machine
and
repro-.
New
York:
Simon
&
Schuster,
1998,
duced
the innermost
debates
of
the
4
57pp,
index,
illus.
American
government
as
it
sought
to
form
a
policy
in
response
to
the
Daniel
Yergin
has
over his
career
Soviet
placement
of
missiles
in shown
a
happy knack
for
striking
Cuba
in
1962. the
right
note
at
the
opportune
Equipped
with
a
judicious
com-
moment.
In
this
book,
co-authored
mentary, the
May-Zelikow
version
with
his
business
associate,
Joseph
of
Kennedy's
'Executive
Commit-
Stanislaw,
his
instinct
has
not
tee'
is
mildly
reassuring
about
the
deserted
him.
rationality
and
behaviour
of
the
Over
the
past
twenty
years
there
362
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Spring
1998
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