The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality (Stanford Nuclear Age Series)

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 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 An unanticipated consequence : Lyndon Johnson and the Cuban Missile Crisis Conclusion : leadership matters Epilogue : What if? This book completely transforms our understanding of the actual roles that each of the principal EXCOMM members played in the decision making process that led to a peaceful resolution of the Cuban missile crisis.