Interview with Arthur Schlesinger, 1986

Item Information

Title:
Interview with Arthur Schlesinger, 1986
Description:
Arthur Schlesinger was a prominent historian and a close adviser to President John F. Kennedy and later Robert F. Kennedy. Schlesinger discusses the Cuban missile crisis at length in this interview. He provides some context by addressing President Kennedy's absorption with Cuba starting with the Bay of Pigs, and he describes the covert operations plan known as Operation Mongoose. Kennedy's main concern during the crisis was not that the Soviets might launch a nuclear war, since they were at a significant military and nuclear disadvantage, but that something might go wrong, precipitating uncontrollable consequences. During the interview, he assesses Robert Kennedy's role at high-level discussions as well as his views, and he touches on other subjects such as President Kennedy's American University speech [of June 10, 1963], and the ill effects of the myth of the missile gap. Returning to the crisis, he describes the president's reactions the day after its resolution and draws the principal lesson that presenting a tough veneer to the enemy was not enough, it required a mix of power and diplomatic resourcefulness. "[A]rms and diplomacy must go hand in hand."
Interviewee:
Schlesinger, Arthur M. (Arthur Meier), 1917-2007
Date:
March 7, 1986
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
WGBH Open Vault
Series:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
United Nations
United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff
Salinger, Pierre
Alsop, Stewart
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Cuba--History--Invasion, 1961
LeMay, Curtis E.
Cousins, Norman
Ball, George
Nuclear weapons
International relations
United States. Central Intelligence Agency
Nuclear arms control
Sorensen, Theodore C.
Communism
Kaysen, Carl
United States. Dept. of Defense
Bundy, McGeorge
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963)
Operation Mongoose
United States. Navy
Soviet Union
Reagan, Ronald
Acheson, Dean, 1893-1971
Kennedy, Robert F., 1925-1968
Castro, Fidel, 1926-
Macmillan, Harold, 1894-1986
Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich, 1894-1971
Dobrynin, Anatoly, 1919-2010
Dillon, C. Douglas (Clarence Douglas), 1909-2003
Burke, Arleigh A., 1901-1996
Eisenhower, Dwight D. (Dwight David), 1890-1969
Dulles, John Foster, 1888-1959
Anderson, George Whelan, 1906-1992
Taylor, Maxwell D. (Maxwell Davenport), 1901-1987
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Harriman, W. Averell (William Averell), 1891-1986
Harlech, David Ormsby-Gore, baron, 1918-
McNamara, Robert S., 1916-2009
Betancourt, Romulo, 1908-1981
Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973
Pen'kovskii, Oleg Vladimirovich, 1919-1963
Places:
United States
Venezuela
Mississippi > Grenada (county) > Grenada
Cuba
Extent:
00:49:06:18
Link to Item:
https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_796750C2392A439F8E9F9F0E1D08DF18
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Identifier:
V_796750C2392A439F8E9F9F0E1D08DF18