Syllabus for a New Course:
History 291/Fall 2014
JFK:
The Decision-maker Behind the Myth
University of Waterloo
History 291
Fall 2014
Mondays, 2:30 PM-5: 30 PM
Douglas Wright Engineering Building (DWE)
Room 3517
Instructors:
James G. Blight and janet M. Lang
Department of History, University of Waterloo
and
Balsillie School of International Affairs
CIGI Campus
67 Erb Street West (corner of Caroline)
BSIA Room 3-13 (JGB) and BSIA Room 3-15 (jML)
Office Hours: By appointment only with the instructors
jblight@balsillieschool.ca
http://www.balsillieschool.ca/jamesblight
jlang@balsillieschool.ca
http://www.balsillieschool.ca/janetlang
Pressure, pushing down on me
Pressing down on you, no man asks for
Under pressure
It’s the terror of knowing
What this world is about
This is our last dance
This is ourselves, under pressure.
David Bowie/Queen, "Under Pressure" (1981)
Courage is “grace under pressure,” as Ernest Hemingway defined it. But terrible
pressures discourage acts of political courage, and can drive a leader to abandon or
subdue his conscience.
John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage (1956)
1. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE.
John F. Kennedy, the 35th U.S. president, has emerged from our own research and
that of others over the past quarter century as very different from your parents’ or
grandparents’ Jack Kennedy. The myths about JFK as a decision-maker in matters of war
and peace have been thoroughly refuted in three respects. First, formerly thought of as
a cold warrior and hawk, we now know that Kennedy was cautious and had a spine of
steel in resisting his hawks, who on at least six occasions tried to talk him into taking the
nation and world to war. Second, once believed to be the paragon of "vigah," health,
and vitality, JFK was actually one of the sickest, most physically compromised American
presidents in U.S. history. He was given last rites by a priest at least four times, and
possibly a fifth--the latter while he was president, in June 1961. Third, we also know
from the archives and informed oral testimony in Moscow, Havana and Hanoi, that
Kennedy was right to resist his hawks. If war came, initiated by the U.S., most of
Kennedy's advisers told him the Soviets would not respond, due to the U.S.'s
overwhelming nuclear superiority at the time. We now know that the responses would
have been devastating, probably uncontrollable, and possibly apocalyptic.
In this course, students will examine the connections between JFK’s life-long “body boot
camp,” in which Kennedy learned never to trust experts—whether doctors or generals—
and the decisions he made (and did not make) on the half-dozen occasions when he
was intensely pressured to go to war. We will explore these connections in biographies
and other books, articles, films, podcasts, blogs, graphic novels and the uniquely
revealing “Kennedy tapes,” which give a “fly on the wall” immediacy to observing Jack
Kennedy making decisions under tremendous pressure. We will ask: what are the
takeaways for us, in the 21st century, as our leaders contemplate military options in
foreign policy crises? We will ask, as we apply the lessons from a half-century ago: what
would Jack Kennedy do, and why; and, what would Jack Kennedy not do, and why not?
JFK was far from infallible, but his decisions on war and peace suggest considerable
relevance for our own time.
2. GETTING UP TO SPEED FAST: START HERE (AND HERE AND HERE)!
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The instructors want this course to be fun, as well as interesting and informative.
Probably the most unusual feature of the course is its genre-busting use of transmedia
(aka multiple platform story-telling) as a means of engaging digital natives like you in
this wild and wooly 21st century.
Start your adventure by clicking on the following three links, as you begin to immerse
yourself in the non-traditional mindset of the instructors of this course:
The Transmedia Approach. Begin with this site. Plan to return to it throughout
the semester, as we build our understanding of JFK’s decision-making with war and
peace on the line.
JFK the Decision-maker. This post, from November 2013, provides the
substantive outline for the entire course. Get to know the man, the president and the
decision-maker when war and peace were on the line.
The Implications for Today. This post, from October 2012, argues that nothing
could be more policy-relevant today than the tale of a leader—JFK—who resisted
tremendous pressure to take his nation and the world to wars—wars that, in the light of
history, would likely have been catastrophic.
3. CONDUCT OF THE CLASS: STUDENT “PROVOCATEURS.”
All classes (except for the first class, on 8 September) will begin with five to ten
minute “provocations” from one or more students. Your objective, as a “provocateur,”
will be to launch the seminar discussion for that particular day, in what you believe are
fruitful directions. You might address such issues as the following: anything you may
have found mysterious or confusing and in need of discussion by the students and
instructors; the principal message, or messages, you found central to the reading and/or
viewing; what you found yourself agreeing with wholeheartedly, or rejecting with equal
enthusiasm; which issues in your view need to be debated in class before you would be
willing to endorse or reject something you have encountered in the reading. After the
provocations (one or more students will have signed up in advance for that particular
day), the instructors will open up the discussion to the entire class. Be sure to bring your
laptop, tablet or smart-phone with you to class, as we will make frequent reference to
our web-based sources. Each student will be required to act as provocateur at least once
during the semester.
There is no “right” or “wrong” way for students to do this, other than to observe
the requirement that the provocation period at the outset of class not take longer than
ten minutes. Students may work together on their provocations, or work individually. It
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depends on the class size. The instructors will bring a sign-up sheet to the first class.
First come, first served. If you sign up early, your choices of dates and topics will be
greater than if you wait until the last minute. Those who do not sign up voluntarily, will
be assigned by the instructors to an open day in the class schedule.
4. THE RESEARCH PAPER.
The instructors will evaluate students in part on the basis of a research paper, not
to exceed 15 single-spaced pages, including endnotes and other supporting
material (12 pt font and 1" margins all around). The paper should be submitted
electronically to the instructors as an e-mail attachment. Longer is not necessarily better.
The content of the paper will be discussed individually with each student either during
office hours (by appointment) throughout the semester, or via e-mail (or both). A précis
(a brief summary or outline) not to exceed 5 pages will be submitted electronically to
the instructors at anytime before class on Monday 3 November. The instructors will
email feedback on the précis to students prior to the next class, on Monday 10
November. The research paper will be the most important factor in determining your
grade for the course. When assigning final grades to students, however, the instructors
will give consideration to students who have made significant contributions to the class
discussions. An electronic copy of the research paper must reach the instructors via an
email attachment on or before Wednesday 10 December.
The précis is fundamentally a progress report, and also an “action-enforcing
device” to make sure students stick to a schedule that insures that the research paper
will: (1) not be a big surprise to the instructors; (2) not be thrown together at the last
minute; and (3) be worked out in a dialogue with the instructors, over the course of the
semester, on a subject of interest to the students, and also on a subject about which the
instructors are well enough informed to give a knowledgeable and helpful reading. By
far, in the view of the instructors, the best way to accomplish these objectives is to
adopt a two-pronged strategy: first, to meet occasionally, as needed (but by no means
required) with the instructors, if students feel the need to discuss their progress (or lack
of it) orally; and second, even more importantly, to be in touch via e-mail as often as the
need arises throughout the semester, trying out ideas, asking about sources to be
consulted, and so on. Since the final paper is a written paper, by far the best way for
students to assess their progress is via responses of the instructors to their written
products, however, tentative and preliminary they might initially be.
So: put it in writing, fire off an email to the instructors, get an email response, and then
plunge back into the paper.
5. CONSTITUENTS OF THE FINAL GRADE FOR THE COURSE.
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Student participation in the seminar discussions will account for roughly 40% of
each student’s final grade in the course. The final paper will account for roughly 60% of
the grade for the course.
6. REQUIRED E-BOOKS AND OTHER DOWNLOADS.
This course will take place in a paper-free zone. All the required assignments and
suggested supplemental readings and video are available in one or more of the
following formats: most are free and online; others are available from online sources to
download to your hard drives; and (occasionally) as attachments to email messages
from the instructors to the students taking the course. Each required reading or viewing
listed in this section contains hyperlinks to one or more digital sources for the material.

James G. Blight and janet M. Lang, The Armageddon Letters: Kennedy/
Khrushchev/Castro in the Cuban Missile Crisis (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
2012). The book can be downloaded as an ebook from itunes, as well as from the
publisher, Rowman & Littlefield.
This book is focused on the remarkable correspondence during the height of the
October 1962 Cuban missile crisis between U.S. President Kennedy and Soviet
leader Nikita Khrushchev; and between Khrushchev and Cuban leader Fidel
Castro. The three leaders, each trying to avoid a catastrophic war over the
clandestine emplacement of Soviet missiles in Cuba, are led by their own
misperceptions and misjudgments to raise the risk of just the sort of conflict they
most want to avoid—a nuclear war. The letters are sobering, dramatic and highly
relevant to the tasks facing those charged with responsibility for dealing with
contemporary flash points—such as Iran, Israel, South Korea or Pakistan. The
book is the anchor of a transmedia website, and should be read simultaneously
with exploring the site.

James G. Blight, janet M. Lang and David A. Welch, Virtual JFK: Vietnam if
Kennedy Had Lived, expanded paperback ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,
2010). The book will be made available in pdf format by the instructors.
JFK was assassinated in November 1963. At that moment, the U.S. commitment
to its ally, South Vietnam, was limited to roughly 16,000 military advisers. Less than two
years later, JFK’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, ordered hundreds of thousands of U.S.
combat troops to South Vietnam, as the nation and southeast Asia sunk into a quagmire
of war. Would JFK have Americanized the Vietnam War? The authors answer “no,” to this
tantalizing “what-if?” question, providing oral testimony, documentation and analysis of
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many key documents from U.S. archives. The authors also offer the most authoritative
account so far of JFK’s decision-making in matters of war and peace.

Koji Masutani, director, “Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived,” a 2008
feature-length documentary film, issued by Sven Kahn Films. The film can be
downloaded from itunes, and is also available from many other sources.
This multiple award-winning film is a companion to the book of the same title.
The trailer, movie reviews and a list of the awards garnered by the film are available on
the film’s website. Masutani has organized his material brilliantly, focused on six deep
national security crises faced by JFK as president, each of which saw the president
square off against his hawkish advisers, avoiding war on all six occasions. His film poses
this question: what would Kennedy have done with a seventh crisis, over whether or not
to Americanize the war in Vietnam? The film’s central argument is simple, but has
overwhelming significance for the recent history of U.S. foreign policy: if JFK had lived,
the U.S. war in Vietnam would never have happened.

Chris Matthews, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero (New York Simon & Schuster, 2011).
The book can be downloaded as an ebook from itunes, as well as from Google
Books.
The author is known to millions as the host of the long-running MSNBC talk
show,
“Hardball.” He is also the author of several well-regarded books on recent U.S. political
history. His “Kennedy and Nixon” explores a little-known secret kept by both leaders:
both JFK and RN actually liked each other, and they regularly hung out together while in
the House of Representatives in the immediate post-war years. In Jack Kennedy,
Matthews provides, for the first time, a biography of Kennedy focused primarily on his
evolution as a politician, first in Massachusetts, then at the national level becoming, at
43, the second youngest president in U.S. history. (Theodore Roosevelt was a few
months younger than JFK when he took office.) Matthews, who worked for many years
as a political organizer, interviewed many of the key behind the scenes political advisers
who helped make Kennedy’s whirlwind career possible.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,
expanded ed. (New York: Random House, 2010). The Black Swan in pdf format is
available to download free and online.
On at least six occasions, JFK refused to follow the recommendations of the
majority of his advisers, who counseled him to use U.S. military force. We can now see
that what seemed so maddeningly illogical to most of JFK’s advisers on national security
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has, in fact, a profound logic of its own: Black Swan logic. This book can help us
understand how JFK made his decisions, and how we can apply a model of JFK as a
decision-maker to problems of war and peace in this 21th century. (The aptness of the
term, “Black Swan,” derives from the belief that, since all previously encountered swans
are white, one becomes convinced, perhaps unconsciously, that all swans are white, and
thus is shocked when confronted by a black swan—which are metaphorical everywhere
outside western Australia, where they actually exist.) Time and again, Kennedy the
decision-maker proved to be far more interested in what he knew he didn’t know, than
what his hawkish advisers claimed they did know. He was also concerned more with
what might conceivably happen, than with what his advisers told him probably would
happen. JFK was thus a thoroughgoing practitioner of Black Swan logic. The Black Swan
is accessible, often funny, always interesting, and full of implications for political
decision-making with war and peace on the line.
Note: In addition to the required books, articles and movies, the instructors have
listed relevant web-links: commentary on documents, reports, analyses, photos
and video relevant to the issues under discussion in the seminar in each particular
week.
7. CLASS SCHEDULE.
8 September/Class #1: Welcome to the instructors’ world
During the first part of the class, the instructors will provide a multimedia outline of the
course. After the break, the instructors will open up the class for discussion. Together we
will explore what students believe about JFK, on what basis they believe it, and whether
the study of a decision-maker who died a half century ago can have any relevance to
problems of war and peace in the 21st century.
Students who have not already done so, should click on the three links in Part Two,
above, and explore the posts by the instructors. Priority should be given to JFK the
Decision-maker. But students should familiarize themselves with the two papers, plus
the transmedia site listed in Part Two, above, by 15 September (class #2), as well as the
reading that is specific to that class.
Part One: JFK Immersion School/October 1962
15 September/Class #2: Sleepwalking Toward Catastrophe
Students will enter a “JFK immersion school,” focused on Kennedy’s decisions before,
during and after the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. The crisis was the most
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dangerous in human history, an event that nearly spiraled into a nuclear catastrophe.
JFK himself was partly to blame for the onset of the crisis, as were the other two major
players, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and Cuban President Fidel Castro. In the
period leading up to the missile crisis, misunderstandings and misperceptions
abounded, defensive actions were mistaken for threatening gestures, and the leaders
began their sleepwalk toward the brink of nuclear war.
Required Reading and Viewing:
Blight and Lang, The Armageddon Letters: Kennedy/Khrushchev/Castro in the Cuban
Missile Crisis, pp. 1-78 (to the end of the section called “Collision”).
The Armageddon Letters (Transmedia site).
In particular, cruise through the more than a dozen short films, which provide various
perspectives on the crisis, as well as personality profiles of the principal figures in the
unfolding events of October 1962. A useful way to begin exploration of the transmedia
site is to click first on the introduction, "Who Cares About the Cuban Missile Crisis?",
before proceeding to the trio of short films that challenge you to "Be Kennedy," to "Be
Khrushchev," and to "Be Castro."
Suggested Viewing:
"The Missiles of October: What the World Didn't Know." This is the best comprehensive
documentary ever produced on the Cuban missile crisis. It is based, in large part, on the
research of a team led by the instructors, who gained unprecedented access to
documents and decision-makers in the U.S., Russia and Cuba. It is narrated by Toronto
native Peter Jennings, and produced by Sherry L. Jones, for ABC News, in October 1992.
"Memories of Underdevelopment", a 1968 film by Thomas Gutierrez. Many regard this
as the greatest Cuban film ever made. It takes place during the Cuban missile crisis and
focuses on a man who cannot decide whether he wants to emigrate to Miami, as many
of his friends have done, or whether he should stay, and fight for Cuban dignity, even
though Cuba cannot win the fight with the U.S., and even though he believes Cuba will
be destroyed in a U.S. nuclear attack. It gives insight into a peculiarly Cuban style of
patriotism, with its emphasis on martyrdom. Free online.
Soy Cuba! (I am Cuba). A 1964 collaboration between Soviet and Cuban filmmakers, who
attempt to show the corruption and degradation of Cuban life before the Triumph of
the 1959 Revolution, and the revolutionary values that replaced them once Fidel Castro’s
26th of July Movement came to power. The film is propagandistic, but is nevertheless an
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accurate portrayal of the way the Cuban revolutionaries thought about themselves
during their early days in power. Click and download.
22 September/Class #3: On the Brink of the Unspeakable
This is where it really gets scary. Fearing that the U.S. is poised to destroy the Cuban
Revolution and put another U.S. puppet in power in Havana, the Russians secretly
deploy nuclear missiles to Cuba. The U.S., which is closely monitoring what the Russians
are giving the Cubans, does not immediately realize that missiles capable of hitting U.S.
targets are involved in the Soviet “gifts” to their Cuban allies. When Washington does
realize it, the Kennedy administration reacts strongly by establishing a “quarantine” of
the island and threatening to bomb and invade if the Russians don’t take back their
“offensive” weapons. The Cubans, who have been in the U.S. crosshairs ever since they
came to power in January 1959, announce repeatedly that the Cuban nation will fight to
the death against any American bombing campaign and/or invasion. So the stage is set
for the ultimate tragedy. For a week or more, the world seems poised on the brink of
total destruction.
Required Reading:
Blight and Lang, The Armageddon Letters, pp. 79-122 (“Spiral”).
Suggested viewing and listening:
"The Missiles of October", a 1974 play filmed for presentation on U.S. television. It stars
William Devane as JFK, Martin Sheen as Robert Kennedy, and Howard da Silva as Nikita
Khrushchev. The film was made long before the Cuban side of the crisis came to light,
thus the focus is exclusively on JFK and Khrushchev. In spite of that limitation, however,
the film is a minimalist gem of what it must feel like to make decisions in a crisis in
which, if all does not go well, a catastrophic nuclear war may commence. Free online.
Bob Dyan's apocalypse. No one captured the anxiety and contradictions of the nuclear
age better than folk-rock legend, Bob Dylan. He was just beginning to emerge in the
New York folk music scene when it got very scary: the Berlin Wall crisis of 1961 and the
Cuban missile crisis of 1962 were frightening, not just to high level decision-makers, but
also to ordinary people. Dylan, with his sense of irony and his sometimes screechy, inyour-face voice, turned fear into outrage—that the leaders of the world would put the
human race at risk for a wall in Germany or a bunch of missiles in Cuba. Out of Dylan’s
encounter with nuclear danger, came some of the greatest songs he ever wrote. These
include, but are far from limited to, the following:
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Masters of War
Talkin’ World War III Blues
A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall
With God on Our Side
Click on the link to Dylan’s vast and fascinating website, and then cue up these songs.
Dylan also wrote a song, never officially released, which is specifically about the Cuban
missile crisis. A cover for this song, simply called "The Cuban Missile Crisis," has been
posted by a young Scandinavian fan of Dylan’s.
Of all the songs Dylan wrote about the threat of nuclear war, his masterpiece is “A Hard
Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” Dylan's own version of it is shrill and to the point. Joan Baez's cover
is perhaps little too beautiful, given that the subject is blowing up the world. The
instructors’ favorite version is by Bryan Ferry, the former lead singer of the British pop
group, Roxy Music. Ferry speeds up the delivery to almost twice as fast as Dylan sang it,
and makes it scary—weird and
scary.
A short graphic novel by the eminent Italian artist, Lorenzo Mattotti, attempts the
impossible: to capture visually what Dylan is trying to accomplish via the wild and wooly
metaphors and images in “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” And Mattotti nearly pulls it off.
Here are the lyrics by Dylan. See if you can match them with their respective images by
Mattotti.
Barry McGuire, "Eve of Destruction", sold millions following its release in 1965, three
years after the missile crisis, and just as hundreds of thousands of U.S. combat troops
were landing in South Vietnam. Written by P.F. Sloan and recorded by many artists,
McGuire’s version is still the one to beat. He didn’t sing it so much as he growled it. The
song, as someone said at the time, is a four-minute rendition of the American
apocalypse, by a very angry guy who can’t sing or play the guitar.
29 September/Class #4: Resolution of the Crisis/Lessons
Over the past quarter century, our knowledge of decision-making during the Cuban
missile crisis has increased exponentially. From interviews, conference transcripts, and
declassified (formerly top-secret) documents from the U.S., Cuba and Russia, we now
know just how close the world came to Armageddon. The more we have learned, the
scarier it gets. Yet the three main participants in the crisis—Kennedy, Khrushchev and
Castro—found a way out. Their mutual misunderstandings led to the crisis. But the
threat of nuclear war seems to have focused their minds on a single objective:
prevention of a nuclear war. Even Fidel Castro and his Cuban constituents, threatened by
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the U.S. and betrayed (as they saw it) by their Russian patron, agreed to compromises
that prior to this brush with oblivion would have been unthinkable. This week we will
discuss what was involved in the leaders last-minute grasp at a resolution to the crisis,
and what it teaches us about “the art of the possible” when the threat of nuclear war is
imminent.
Required Reading and viewing:
Blight and Lang, The Armageddon Letters, pp. 123-238 (“Escape,” “Squeeze,” and
“Hope”).
"The Fog of War." This film by Errol Morris won the Academy Award in 2004 for best
documentary feature film. The film consists of an extended interview with the former
U.S. secretary of defense, Robert S. McNamara. It is poignant, scary, and illuminating. It
has become one of the most viewed documentaries ever produced. The film is especially
brilliant in its sections on the Cuban missile crisis and the U.S. war in Vietnam.
McNamara played a key role in both. Pay special attention to his remarks concerning
why the missile crisis ended peacefully, and why the Vietnam war became a tragic,
protracted slaughter of several million people. Free online.
"Zero: The Surprising and Unambiguous Policy-relevance of the Cuban Missile Crisis."
The instructors posted this paper in October 2012, on the 50th anniversary of the crisis. It
argues that the crisis indicates not only proves that nuclear arsenals must be reduced,
but that they should be completely eliminated.
Suggested exploration:
http://www.cubanmissilecrisis.org/lessons/. This website was established by The JFK
School at Harvard just before the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis in October
2012. The tab on lessons is useful because it tracks the way the crisis has been
understood and misunderstood by several generations of leaders and citizens alike.
http://21266881.nhd.weebly.com/thesis.html. This website on the Cuban missile crisis
was constructed by four high school students in Austin, Texas. It provides easy access to
some of the most important documents and video material connected with the Cuban
missile crisis.
Part Two: Becoming John F. Kennedy
6 October/Class #5: JFK, growing up, 1917-1946
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The more we learn about JFK’s young life, the more surreal becomes his
emergence, later on, as a politician and president of the United States during the height
of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War. On the one hand, he had many advantages: his father was
rich; he went to the best schools, including Choate prep school and Harvard University.
He was raised in a cosmopolitan environment, including long visits to England in the
1930s when his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. Yet,
as we have recently discovered, he was probably the sickest person ever elected to the
White House, plagued with a host of painful, crippling medical problems: terrible lower
back pain, Addison’s disease, an adrenal disorder that leaves its victims weak and unable
to resist infections and viruses; and a bewildering array of GI problems. Any one of these
would probably have prevented almost anyone else from leading even a normal life.
Moreover, he was given the Last Rites of the Roman Catholic Church on at least four,
and possibly five occasions. Yet he somehow prevailed, growing up painfully thin and
unhealthy, but becoming a good student, an athlete at Harvard, and a war hero in the
Pacific, poised to enter the fray of elective politics at the end of World War II.
Required Reading and Viewing:
Matthews, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, preface through chapter 4, “War Hero.”
"The Medical Ordeals of JFK," by Robert Dallek, from The Atlantic Magazine (2002).
Dallek was the first historian ever granted access by the Kennedy family to JFK’s medical
records. Plan to spend some time with this article. It is endlessly fascinating to imagine a
U.S. president whose medical profile seems to indicate that he must have been a
disabled person.
"A Knife in the Back," an article published in The New Yorker in 2002 by the Harvard
physician, Jerome Groopman. He describes in graphic detail the kind of back surgery JFK
underwent on a number of occasions—surgery that Groopman himself had performed
on his own back. Often, “spinal fusion,” as it is called, leaves a patient in much worse
shape than before the surgery, which is what happened to both JFK and Groopman.
"Survival," by John Hersey, from “The New Yorker,” 1944. This article was instrumental in
establishing JFK as a bona fide war hero, whose boat, PT-109, was cut in half by a
Japanese destroyer, killing two of Kennedy’s crew. The rest survived due mostly to the
ingenuity and courage of JFK, the boat’s commander.
"All Quiet on the Western Front," a 1930 adaptation of the novel by Erich Maria
Remarque. JFK saw the film and read the book. There is no more poignant example of
the utter futility, brutality and stupidity of the “Great War,” as it was called. Free online.
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"I Have a Rendezvous With Death," by Allen Seeger, an American who fought and died
in World War I as a volunteer for the French Foreign Legion. This poem remained JFK’s
favorite poem throughout his life. Seeger’s nephew, the folk singer and political activist,
Pete Seeger, was a classmate of JFK’s at Harvard.
Winston Churchill, Great Britain’s feisty, irascible prime minister during the Second
World War, Churchill commanded the British naval forces during WWI. He was dismissed
from the Cabinet after the disastrous British attempt to force the Turks out of Gallipoli in
1915. Out of office, he wrote a multi-volume account of the war, The World Crisis, which
JFK read over and over again during his many hospitalizations as a boy and young man.
See “The Deadlock in the West,” pp. 291-294, for Churchill’s magisterial account of the
global catastrophe that WWI ultimately became.
Suggested Reading and Viewing:
"Why England Slept," the published version of JFK’s senior thesis at Harvard, written
under History Department Professor Bruce Hopper. This online version is the final
typescript that his editor sent to the publisher. It became a best-seller, due to its
prescient discussion of the coming of the Second World War, on the heels of Great
Britain’s failure to understand the nature of the Nazi threat. Not bad for an
undergraduate history major.
JFK's Medical Chronology. This astounding catalogue was assembled by a physician
calling himself “Dr. Zebra.” As you read this, remember to keep telling yourself that the
person being described medically is the same person we remember as one of the most
vigorous, energetic presidents in U.S. history.
Raymond Asquith, JFK’s role model for all time, son of the British Prime Minster at the
outset of World War I. Here are several memories of Asquith, who does indeed sound
much like the young JFK: apparently carefree but deeply determined to succeed, gifted,
handsome, and a man who could easily have pulled strings and avoided service in WWI.
Instead, he pulled strings to insure that he was sent to the Western front, where he was
killed in the bloody Battle of the Somme, in 1916.
13 October: Thanksgiving Day (No Class)
20 October/Class #6: JFK, the Emerging Politician, 1946-1960
Among the popular myths about JFK are the following: that he was not
ambitious, that he had everything given to him on a silver platter, and that as a
politician, his success should be attributed to his father’s money, his own good looks,
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and the services provided him by a first-rate team of political operatives, led by his
brother, Robert (“Bobby”). The money was there from the start, as were his good looks.
And his team was very good. But as Chris Matthews shows, JFK was a driven politician
who, from a very early point knew that he wanted to be the president of the United
States. He needed to get elected to Congress in order to get to the Senate. He needed
the Senate as a launching pad for a run at the presidency. He learned from his mistakes.
And as Matthews argues, Kennedy was not only willing to play political “hardball,” but
he and his team played “winner take all” as JFK worked his way to the White House.
Looking back, JFK may seem simply destined for the White House. But he got there
because, in addition to some obvious advantages, he also out thought and out worked
his opponents. And he did it all while hiding from public scrutiny his potentially fatal
Addison’s disease and his crippling (and progressively worsening) lower back pain.
Required Reading and Viewing:
Matthews, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, chapters 5-12.
"Dr. Strangelove," one of the greatest American films ever made, and the best account
on film of the absurdity of “mutual assured destruction,” or nuclear deterrence,
supposedly the means by which the peace was kept during the Cold War. The 1964 film
both is, and is not, a satire. While very funny, the film nevertheless differs only in degree
from the way the Cold War was actually played out. So enjoy it, but you might want to
keep a light on in your room when you watch it. The movie conveys, as only great art
can, some of the deepest, darkest fears of what might happen during the Cold War,
especially during periods when it seemed poised to break out into war involving the U.S.
and USSR.
JFK's "Pullout" Speech, 1956. This is vividly described in Matthews’ book. Seeing the
handwriting on the wall, JFK rushes to the speaker’s rostrum to concede his run at the
vice-presidential nomination to Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. Rather than let the
clock run down with a whimper, JFK goes out with a bang that will bode well for him
when he runs for all the White House marbles in 1960. You can go directly to JFK’s short
speech by scrolling to the 28-minute mark. Keep in mind that he was literally making
this up on the spot, and in opposition to the advice of most of his advisers.
JFK's Acceptance Speech, LA, 1960. Excerpts from a remarkable speech. Note that when
the camera focuses on Adlai Stevenson (who has just lost the nomination to Kennedy in
a bruising battle behind the scenes), everyone claps and cheers except Stevenson. (A
journalist wrote at the time that “Adlai looked as if he were having bad gas pains.”) Note
too the way Kennedy speaks about his feelings in being nominated even though he was
a Roman Catholic, only the second time it has happened in American history. Final note:
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teleprompters did not exist in 1960. JFK is working from notes, but largely just winging
it.
The First JFK-Nixon Debate. The first-ever live, televised U.S. presidential debate by
major candidates. It changed the course of the campaign, giving Kennedy the
advantage, and eventually altered U.S. history, as JFK went on to become the 35th U.S.
president. Note how cool and relaxed Kennedy is, and how awkward Nixon appears
right from the start. Note too how articulate and in command of the facts both
candidates are. Finally, compared to the debates of recent years, these two candidates
seem very polite, respectful of one another. This seems odd, perhaps, in the light of
Nixon’s well-deserved reputation as the master of dirty tricks, nefarious innuendo, and
personal attacks on opponents. But the fact is: at this stage, Kennedy and Nixon actually
liked one another. They stuck to the issues—so much so that, in light of what has
happened in U.S, politics since then, the two candidates seem to have arrived from
another planet, a much more civilized planet than we currently inhabit.
Suggested Viewing:
"Failsafe," originally a 1964 film, this a remake by George Clooney in 2000, filmed in
black and white, like the original, though with tighter editing and better acting. “Failsafe”
and “Strangelove” should be seen together—the taut, tense drama of a B-52 preparing
to drop a nuclear bomb on the Russians, and the absurdist fantasy. The question you
should ask is: while it is certainly absurd, is it necessarily a fantasy?
"The Fog of War." Review it again, especially on what McNamara has to say about the
Cold War, as he expands on his exclamation: “Cold War, hell; it was a hot war.”
27 October/Class #7: JFK, the presidential decision-maker
Our understanding of JFK as a presidential decision-maker has been greatly
revised over the last 25 years. Once thought of as a Cold War hawk, a leader who
needlessly exposed his constituents to crisis after dangerous crisis during his 1036 days
in office, we now know that Kennedy actually prevented the hawks in his administration
from initiating wars on at least six occasions. Before a quarter century ago, historians
had only JFK’s Cold War rhetoric to guide them, which was often hawkish, and the
histories of his administration written by his loyal aides, who were thought biased and
unreliable—the posthumous rendition of what many journalists resented, the vaunted
Kennedy spin machine. We know now, after the declassification of crucial documents
from archives all over the world, and from oral testimony by JFK’s aides, allies and
adversaries, that the spin-doctors were right all along. Kennedy stood between his
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military and war, and he refused to budge. Chris Matthews is aware of this, and that is
why the word hero in the subtitle of his book is not in quotation marks.
Required Reading and Viewing:
Matthews, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, chapters 13-16.
"Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived," a 2008 feature-length documentary film by
Koji Masutani, issued by Sven Kahn Films. The film can be downloaded from itunes, and
is also available from many other sources.
Blight, Lang and Welch, Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived, Prologue and Chapter
1. (The instructors will provide copies in pdf format.) In addition, see pp. 293-298, for the
context of the secret Kennedy tapes dealing with his plan to withdraw U.S. advisers from
South Vietnam.
"Armageddon's Echoes," a 1997 CNN excerpt from The Kennedy Tapes, 16 October 196228 October 1962.
JFK and Gen. Godfrey McHugh, a 1963 telephone conversation about a suite for Jackie
Kennedy that the Air Force had just installed at Otis AFB on Cape Cod, near the Kennedy
summer compound. If you wonder whether Kennedy, a very young president, may have
been intimidated by senior military officers, think again. In this call, he terrorizes an Air
force General about a looming public relations disaster.
JFK's/Withdrawal From Vietnam, secret tape recordings made on 2 October 1963, of a
conversation involving JFK, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, Secretary of
Defense Robert McNamara and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Maxwell Taylor.
These tapes, which were finally declassified and transcribed a few years ago, reveal a JFK
who is conspiring with McNamara to bypass some of his hawkish advisers and begin to
prepare to withdraw the bulk of the 16,000 U.S. military advisers from South Vietnam—
after his (presumed) reelection in November 1964.
"The Spy Who Came in From the Cold," a 1965 British film directed by Martin Ritt, based
on the landmark thriller by John Le Carre. The film is in black and white (a kind of
metaphor for the way everything seemed during the darkest days of the Cold War). The
film begins tragically and ends tragically at the Berlin Wall, the most potent and portentous
symbol of the Cold War. All the performances are first-rate, but this may be Richard
Burton’s finest hour as a movie actor, playing British spy, Alec Leamas.
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JFK's Speech in West Berlin, 26 June 1963. No, that crowd you see packed into a square in
West Berlin has not assembled to attend a rock concert. But yes, the noise is overwhelming
at times. And the look on the faces of the West Berliners, chanting “Kenn-e-dy, Kenn-e-dy,”
seems to convey equal portions of hope, fear and admiration, but most of all hope that
they will not be abandoned by the U.S. and the West. JFK is reassuring, but in a way that
could be interpreted as a promise to the West Berliners that if the Soviets or East Germans
make a move on West Berlin, the U.S. would not stand idly by, but would endeavor to
protect them militarily. West Berlin, says Kennedy, is the leading edge in the Cold War, the
symbol of people everywhere who cherish their individual freedom. In the most famous
line from the speech, Kennedy says in fractured German, “Ich bin ein Berliner” (“I am a
Berliner”). And the crowd goes bonkers, like a crowd at a Bruce Springsteen concert, when
they are trying to coax the band to do another encore.
Suggested Reading and Viewing:
JFK/Cuban Missile Crisis Tapes. The National Security Archive at George Washington
University has assembled excerpts from some of the most important discussions secretly
recorded by JFK during the Cuban missile crisis. Listen in: you will be a fly on the wall
during debates and conversations in which the 800-pound gorilla at the table is the
steadily increasing risk of a nuclear war over the Soviet missiles on the island of Cuba. It’s
scarier—much scarier, once you get familiar with it—than fiction.
JFK's Inaugural Address. One of the most quoted speeches in U.S. history. Short, eloquent,
and sounding very hawkish to many people. JFK’s public statements sometimes were
unabashedly hawkish. Yet behind the scenes, we now know that he was skeptical about his
(or anyone’s) ability to control the course of a military intervention beyond the initial
action.
Part Three: How to Build a Virtual JFK for the 21st Century
3 November/Class #8: Elements of Black Swan Logic
Welcome to the world of Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan logic. (A reminder: the aptness
of the term, “Black Swan,” derives from the belief that, since all previously encountered
swans are white, one becomes convinced, perhaps unconsciously, that all swans are
white, and thus is shocked when confronted by a black swan—which are metaphorical
everywhere outside western Australia, where they actually exist.)
Taleb’s 2010 book, The Black Swan, has been praised by many, condemned by a
few, while still others throw up their hands in puzzlement. Wait a minute, say the skeptics.
What we don’t know is more important than what we do know? And it is often far more
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important to avoiding doing something, than to do something? We should adjust to the
centrality of Black Swan events, rather than try to predict them? We human beings are like
turkeys? That is, if turkeys were capable of higher mental processes—in that we gain
confidence with each successive confirmation, and often are most confident just before the
Black Swan appears, out of nowhere, completely upsetting our experience-based
predictions. If I am a turkey, I will feel most confident in my benign future just before
Thanksgiving Day, when the turkey farmer chops my head off. Oops! We are like that? Yes,
says Taleb, all that and much more. We are, in fact, the people Yogi Berra, the baseball Hall
of Fame catcher and Taleb’s favorite “philosopher,” was referring to when he said, “There
are some people who, if they don’t already know, you can’t tell ‘em.” Yogi Berra knew, as
Taleb knows, “it is tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” JFK believed
that too, which is why he was so skeptical about the rosy predictions of his military
“experts,” the kind of people Taleb refers to as “empty suits.”
Required Reading and Viewing:
Taleb, Black Swan, Prologue and Part One, pp. xxi-133.
"Blowing Up," by Malcolm Gladwell (2002). This profile of Taleb was written several years
before the appearance of The Black Swan. Gladwell gives an up close and personal bio of
where Taleb began his professional career, as a Wall Street trader—a very different trader
from his competitors. Instead of trying to become hugely rich very fast, Taleb instead
developed a strategy focused on the avoidance of catastrophe—or what in Wall Street
lingo is called a “blow up,” when a trader loses everything, or worse, is loaded with debts
and no means of paying them off.
The Lebanese Civil War Begins. This excellent short documentary features the British
journalist, Jonathan Dimbleby, in Lebanon roughly a year after the civil war began. Keep
in mind that the war would go on for another fourteen years. Note the early scenes, in
which Dimbleby, the narrator, explains in some detail that this intersection used to be
teeming with people, or that building used to be a five star hotel, or other features of
Beirut that made it “the Paris of the Middle East.” This is the Lebanon into which Nassim
Taleb was born: a country of traders with many different religious outlooks, who
nevertheless co-existed with relative ease for hundreds of years. As you survey the
extraordinary destruction, it is indeed difficult to believe that just months before, what
you are seeing (which looks like the Gaza Strip during the recent Israeli bombardment)
was beautiful, prosperous, hopeful, and populated with ordinary people going about
their daily lives. As you see it in this film, a year into the war, Beirut had become such a
hell-hole that it gave rise to a new verb: to Lebanonize, or Lebanonization, meaning to
split apart in a disastrous war that spirals totally out of control. This is Taleb’s personal,
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primal, Black Swan event: the Lebanese civil war, an event no one predicted, that
changed everything, for the worse.
Nassim Taleb, “"The Lebanese Civil War that Doesn't Happen." This is a recent FaceBook
posting by Taleb (who is sometimes disdainful of digital media, especially social media). In
this brief posting, Taleb tries to explain why, despite the occasional suicide bomber and
other terrorist acts in and around Beirut, Lebanon has so far resisted, for the most part, the
descent into violent madness that has happened all over the region in the wake of the socalled “Arab Spring.”
Nassim Taleb, channeling Jon Elster, on "Bullshitology". This is also from Taleb’s FaceBook
page. If you squint, you can make out what it says, and it is well worth the squint. Be
careful, however: you may never again believe anything you hear from your professors.
Suggested Reading and Viewing:
"The Guns of August," the documentary companion to the great 1962 best-seller, also
called The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman. This the classic example of leaders, nations
and citizens marching like sleepwalkers into a war that will have no winners, and many
losers. The book was published just before the Cuban missile crisis. By the time of the crisis,
Kennedy, who was a history major at Harvard and who remained a history buff even after
becoming president, had read Tuchman’s book. Once the crisis broke, he told his staff to
read the book, because he didn’t want a future historian to write a book, “The Missiles of
October,” the nuclear analogue to Tuchman’s “The Guns of August.” JFK added a caveat: “if
there is anyone around afterward to read such a book.” Free and online.
The Lebanese Civil War for Dummies.
The author of this 2006 posting tries to tell the story of the Lebanese civil war briefly and
impartially, for those of us who are not Middle East specialists. Keep in mind that the
author is looking back on events from the standpoint of 2006, roughly fifteen years after
the civil war ended. Notice that in looking back, he has a tendency we all have when we
retell historical events from the standpoint of the present: it all seems so unavoidable, so
multiply determined, so destined to become exactly what it became. But from another
point of view, it is astounding that for decades, for all the various factions, fear and
loathing lurked just below the surface. One implication is that Taleb’s narrative of Lebanon
as the Paris of the Middle East, while perhaps true, nevertheless required those who
believed it—just about everybody in Lebanon, so it seems—to ignore some facts regarding
their situation that would become tragically obvious once the civil war began. What was
ignored was the potential for a catastrophic “blow up”—a really big and ugly Black Swan.
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[Note: The five-page (or less) précis of students’ research papers must be
submitted to the instructors electronically before class on 3 November.]
10 November/Class #9: Why We Just Can’t Predict
The following proposition is more or less a philosophical truism: no number of confirming
observations can prove that a theory, hypothesis or informal conjecture is correct. Every
morning, the sun comes up. Every night, the sun goes down. Does this prove that the
sequence will be repeated tomorrow? No. We might be very confident that it will. But we
can’t prove it. Whereas, one disconfirming observation is enough to falsify any
generalization. The sun could in principle not rise tomorrow in the East, or at all. This view,
called “falsificationism,” is associated in recent history with the British philosopher, Karl
Popper.
This week, students will consider the profound implications of this proposition for
decision-making in a wide variety of contexts: business, government, investing and
everyday life. One implication is that we should be very careful about trusting people who
put themselves forward as “experts” on any subject, but especially on subjects far removed
from the scientific laboratory. In so doing, we will explore the ideas of Nassim Taleb and
Daniel Kahneman—who are something like the id and the ego of the new psychology of
decision-making. Taleb’s rants on the cult of experts are vivid, pugnacious and in the faces
of those he regards as charlatans. Spoiler alert: Taleb regards all self-professed “experts” as
fakes, and those who believe them as “suckers.” Kahneman is the kinder, gentler critic,
giving everyone a fair hearing, yet in the end he agrees with Taleb.
Skepticism regarding his so-called “experts” came naturally to JFK, for reasons associated
with his own life circumstances. We know that Kennedy was right to reject the hawkish
urgings of his national security advisers. Taleb and Kahneman take us deeper into the
psychology of anti-expert skepticism in ways that transcend the historical circumstances
that shaped JFK.
Required Reading and Viewing:
Taleb, Black Swan, Part Two, pp. 135-211. Taleb’s take on a wide range of experimental
data on decision-making, as filtered through his quirky, informal and devastating Black
Swan analysis. According to Taleb, an expert is someone to whom one of Yogi Berra’s
aphorisms applies in spades: “some people, if they don’t already know, you can’t tell ‘em.’”
“Experts” think they know everything, or at least more than you or I do. Taleb calls them
“empty suits.”
"Everybody's an Expert," by Louis Menand, from The New Yorker, 5 December 2005. An
insightful and engaging review of Kahneman’s 2011 book, Thinking Fast and Slow.
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"Expert Judgment," a short video of Philip Tetlock explaining his investigations of how well,
and/or how poorly, experts predict the future: stock markets, football games, political
elections, whatever. Taleb cites Tetlock extensively, and organizes Tetlock’s findings very
concisely, which means it might be a good idea to read Taleb, Part Two, first, and then
watch the Tetlock interview.
"Don't Blink: The Hazards of Confidence," by Daniel Kahneman, From The New York Times
Magazine, 2011. One of the “mental shortcuts” documented by Kahneman that is
especially pernicious in decision-making is overconfidence. People who believe they are
expert analysts tend to predict less successfully than others, because the “experts” are so
good at rationalizing after the fact their wrong predictions. As a consequence, they seldom
learn lessons from their mistakes because it is so difficult for them to admit they made a
mistake.
"A Machine for Jumping to Conclusions," a conversation with Daniel Kahneman, from The
American Psychologist, 2011. This interview with Kahneman focuses on “Fast Thinking,”
which Kahneman uses as a metaphor for what is sometimes called “leaping before we
look.”
"Blindness, Bias and How We Truly Think," by Daniel Kahneman, from Bloomberg Report,
2011. Kahneman describes his ideas about “premortems,” the practice of imagining prior
to making a decisions what can go wrong. We are challenged to write and “after the fact”
analysis of what went wrong—why the Black Swans reared their ugly heads—before
deciding. Kahneman credits Gary Klein, another scholar of decision-making with
originating the idea. But Kahneman develops it in striking new ways.
Suggested Reading and Viewing:
"Aphorisms," by Yogi Berra. Yogi is Nassim Taleb’s favorite “philosopher.” The instructors
recommend that in reading these pearls of wisdom, “if you get to a fork in the road, take
it.”
Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, 2011. (Available in many formats online, or
as a download.)
[Note: Comments and suggestions on students’ five-page précis, submitted the
previous week, will be sent electronically to students before the meeting of class on
10 November.]
17 November/Class #10: JFK’s Black Swan Logic for the 21st Century
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This week we will pass the decision-making baton from JFK to leaders, nations, and issues
of war and peace in our contemporary world. First, we’ll summarize what we know about
JFK’s decision-making in six war-threatening crises. Next we’ll try to frame our analysis in
terms that are compatible with the best research we have: that of Taleb, Kahneman,
Tversky and Renshon. In short, we want to “build” a kind of virtual JFK that “travels well”
from the Cold War of a half-century ago, to our own chaotic, dangerous world as it exists
now. We want to think in a 21st century context about how to make political decisionmaking more Black Swan robust when war and peace is on the line. Watch out; stay alert:
the ghost of John F. Kennedy will be patrolling the halls and classrooms of UW by this
point in the course. If you develop a thick New England accent, like Kennedy’s we will be
happy to help you find medical assistance. (You will know that you need help when you
begin to say, over and over again, “I pahked my cah in hahvahd yahd.”)
Required Reading and Viewing:
Blight and Lang, "Black Swans/White House. Think about reading this relatively short paper
a couple of times: the first to become familiar with some of the particulars of Black Swan
logic, the second to begin to think about an idea developed by Gary Klein and Daniel
Kahneman, called pre-mortems. Yes, you read that correctly. We will suggest, following
Klein and Kahneman that we find ways for decision-makers to do pre-mortems before
making decisions, before committing to one course or another, before (in the cases we are
most interested in) taking actions that may raise the risk of conflict, killing and catastrophe.
Blight, Lang and Welch, Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived, Chapter One and
Epilogue (plus endnotes associated with Chapter One and Epilogue). (Available from the
instructors in pdf format.)
"Why Hawks Win," by Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon, Foreign Policy Magazine,
2007. This is one of the most influential short articles in the recent history of research on
political decision-making. The instructors have used it as a template, because the
conclusions reached by the authors are deeply anchored in the path-breaking research
that Kahneman carried out with Amos Tversky, for which Kahneman was awared the Nobel
Prize in economics in 2002. (Tversky had died in 1996.)
"How Rational are Our Leaders?" A two-part interview with Daniel Kahneman, in IP, The
Journal of the German Council on Foreign Relations, 2013. (The interview is in English.) In
this wide-ranging interview, Kahneman develops his ideas on the hawkish biases of
political leaders, and what can be done to counteract them.
Suggested Reading and Viewing:
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Are we on the verge of a new cold war between Russia and the West? Or are we already in
a cold war with Vladimir Putin’s resurgent, belligerent Russia? Many believe we are about
to experience what Nassim Taleb’s favorite philosopher, Yogi Berra, called (with
magnificent redundancy) “déjà vu all over again?” Emerging tensions between Russia and
the West may be the most ominous Black Swan to descend on global politics in the past
quarter century. So it’s time to get up to speed on what the problems are and how the two
key leaders, Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin, see themselves and the situation they are
in. The following two magazine piece pieces are good places to start.
"Obama's Way," by Michael Lewis, from Vanity Fair. October 2012. A fast-paced account of
Barack Obama as a presidential decision-maker, by a journalist who obtained extraordinary
access to Obama and his associates. He even played in one of the president’s legendary
pickup basketball games. (Michael Lewis has written extensively about sports, as well as
politics and business.)
"Watching the Eclipse," by David Remnick, from The New Yorker, August 2014. This is a
fascinating piece, told largely from the perspective of the former U.S. ambassador to
Russia, Michael McFaul, whose recent tenure in Moscow was stormy and difficult. But
Remnick is a longtime Russia hand, and a Russian speaker, also reports on what he heard
in Moscow about McFaul and the West generally, from people close to Vladimir Putin.
Part Four: WWJFKDN? (What Would JFK Do Now?)
In the last two class sessions we will discuss some of the many crises, wars, failed states,
and other present and impending disasters that dominate the news in 2014 and which, so
it seems, have no currently available, acceptable solution. All deep and dangerous crises,
conflicts and catastrophes will be on the table for possible discussion. Of course, we will
want to look at the new Cold War that seems to be emerging between Russia and the
West. The latest example of this (at this writing, in early August 2014) is the conflict in
Ukraine, which is a classic example of a conflict that seems to have no solution, other than
armed intervention by the West, which won’t happen, or armed intervention by Russia,
which could happen. Something similarly Cold War-ish seems to be evolving with regard
to resurgent Chinese expansionism in east Asia. Of course, the Middle East is a terrible
mess, in the tragic aftermath of the brief “Arab Spring.” Syria may be imploding. Iraq may
be splitting apart. Islamic extremists may soon emerge stronger and more dangerous than
al Qaeda ever was. Will Iran choose to achieve the status of a nuclear weapons state? Can
North Korea be contained, or will its leadership, which continues to mystify the West, take
the rest of the world to the brink of nuclear conflict, or even over the brink? And what if
Pakistan crashes? What will happen to its nuclear arsenal? The list truly does seem to go on
and on.
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So let’s roll up our sleeves and what kind of agenda we can come up with for our
dangerous world, based in historical fact on the decision-making of JFK, and which is as
Black Swan robust as we know how to make it, and which is based on the global realities of
2014.
24 November/Class #11:
1 December/Class #12:
[Note: Electronic copies of the final papers must be emailed to the instructors by
Noon on 10 December. No exceptions.]
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Addendum to the Syllabus
History 291/Fall 2014
JFK:
The Decison-maker Behind the Myth
Instructors:
James G. Blight and janet M. Lang
There are three things you need to know about your instructors and the "division of
labor" that we have developed for this class:
1. Jim Blight is a Professor in the History Department and CIGI Professor for Foreign
Policy Development at the Balsillie School for International Affairs; and janet Lang is
a Professor in the History Department and Research Professor at the Balsillie School.
2. Jim and janet (J&j) are in their 38th year of marriage and have worked together for
virtually all of that time, often teaching classes together, and even more often
organizing critical oral history conferences related to key moments or periods in US
foreign policy.
3. In October 1999, janet was diagnosed with two cancers, breast cancer and a rare
form of blood cancer called Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia. After surgeries,
radiation, and chemotherapy, her breast cancer may well be a thing of the past. But
her blood cancer is incurable, and periodically needs treatment. She is currently in
her fourth chemotherapy protocol (1st in 2000; second in 2009; third in October,
2011; fourth, July 2014-present). This current protocol – two days of infusions once a
month – is moderately toxic, though generally manageable. The timing of the
infusions has been planned to minimize the time she is not in class. But
chemotherapy is unpredictable; we cannot say whether janet will miss some or any
classes this semester. Currently her main symptom is profound fatigue, on a daily
basis, with occasional additional side-effects from the chemo. With rigorous
management and planning, she functions quite well – even normally! – many days
each month. But, because her awake time is markedly limited, there are constraints
on what she can do as a co-instructor.
Here are j&J's "rules of the road" for this semester:
•
To attend class and participate actively in the discussions, janet sleeps for two hours
right before each class. She should then be quite fine, even vigorous, for the class.
•
Throughout the semester, Jim will be the primary person for one-on-one interactions
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with each of you, whether via email (which works superbly) or via face-to-face
meetings (which can be arranged at needed, around the many medical
appointments related to janet’s chemo this semester). He will be the primary person
guiding you in the selection and development of your research topic.
•
•
Both Jim and janet will regularly be available right after class, as needed.
Jim will be the primary grader for your research paper. janet will be a secondary
reader, but only as her energy permits. This basic (and asymmetric) division of labor
has worked well for us and our students over the years.
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Accommodation for Students with Disabilities: Note for students with disabilities:
The Office for Persons with Disabilities (OPD), located in Needles Hall, Room 1132,
collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for
students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the
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disability, please register with the OPD at the beginning of each academic term.
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