UVA's Larry Sabato says an unfortunate side effect of the release, which frames the removal of minor redactions as "new" documents, is that it feeds continuing conspiracy theories based on the idea that the government is concealing the truth about the assassination.
The failed invasion of Cuba by CIA-trained operatives at the Bay of Pigs set the Kennedy administration on a path of increasingly abusive covert operations against the communist regime, with consequences for US-Cuban relations and American foreign policy that still reverberate.
Fredrik Logevall's new JFK biography is one of the first by a historian who did not personally experience the Kennedy years. Longtime JFK Library historian says this is all to the good, as Logevall makes extensive use of available primary sources to place Kennedy's political and diplomatic views in the context of his formative experiences in wartime.
Read an excerpt from Fredrik Logevall's new biography of John F. Kennedy touching on the collegiate Kennedy's observations of Europe as World War II began.
John F. Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917. Although much of the Camelot ideal was mythical, Kennedy's optimism and purposefulness are nevertheless missed today.
The day before the 1960 New Hampshire presidential primary, candidate John F. Kennedy talked about America's great hope for disarmament. Speaking at the University of New Hampshire, JFK said "No hope is more basic to our aspirations as a nation" than disarmament.
Whether in Helsinki or elsewhere, a summit meeting held by any American president with a Kremlin counterpart has proved to be a momentous occasion, particularly during the Cold War when such talks held the promise of staving off Armageddon.
In a White House memo, Trump said that the nation’s intelligence community persuaded him to keep some documents secret because their exposure could harm “identifiable national security, law enforcement, and foreign affairs concerns.”
