The Morning News

Friday, March 19, 2010

Currently: Afternoon headlines published a bit early today, but they include the new blue-ribbon Hot Chip video. http://tmne.ws/h
about 14 hours ago

Cuba • Fiasco Unfixed

Book Cover My recent roundup of books on Cuba made no claims for completeness—nonetheless I think it a glaring omission not having included University of Alabama history mentor Howard Jones’s vital monograph, The Bay of Pigs. Included in a series from Oxford University Press called “Pivotal Moments in American History,” Jones reaffirms the position that this great blunder is a link in a causal chain leading to the Vietnam fiasco—not to mention the massive shadow it casts on the C.I.A. Series editor David Hackett Fischer quotes Marine Colonel Jack Hawkins, who worked on the Bay of Pigs invasion and other secret operations, saying that 30 years later, civilian leaders “continue to harbor unrealistically overblown ideas about what can be accomplished by covert, deniable means.” And we can see where that led us. —Robert Birnbaum, Jul. 29, 2009
Discuss This • Tweet this • Post to Facebook • FILE UNDER: C.I.A., Cuba, David Hackett Fischer, History, Howard Jones, Pivotal Moments in American History, The Bay of Pigs, Vietnam

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