Ships in the Night: The CIA, the White House and the Bay of Pigs

1995 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piero Gleijeses
Keyword(s):  
State Department ◽  
The State ◽  
White House ◽  
Campaign Rhetoric ◽  
Bay Of Pigs ◽  
Comprehensive Study

AbstractA comprehensive study of the available documents about the Bay of Pigs, including many that have been declassified within the last eighteen months, and extensive interviews with the protagonists in the CIA, the White House and the State Department lead me to conclude that the disastrous operation was launched not simply because Kennedy was poorly served by his young staff and was the captive of his campaign rhetoric, nor simply because of the hubris of the CIA. Rather, the Bay of Pigs was approved because the CIA and the White House assumed they were speaking the same language when, in fact, they were speaking in utterly different tongues.

Was Kennedy the ‘father’ of the US–Israeli alliance? (1962–63)

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Heller
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
State Department ◽  
Professional Staff ◽  
The State ◽  
Territorial Integrity ◽  
White House ◽  
Chief Of Staff ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The Us

This chapter debunks the myth that President Kennedy was the ‘father’ of the American alliance. Once he became predident he had to bow before the constraints of the state department, the Pentagon and the professional staff at the White House. he accepted the beliefs and assessments of Dean Rusk, the secretary of state and Robert McNamara, the secretary of defence. The US national archives show that American diplomats in the Middle East killed Kennedy’s idea of granting an American security guarantee to Israel. Any security they warned, would be followed by deeper Soviet involvement in the region. American commitment was limited to a presidential declaration of territorial integrity of al the regional states. Thus it was no surprise chief-of-staff Rabin failed to convince the US administration to provide a more cogent commitment to Israel.

scholarly journals Edward Stettinius – Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of State

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetiana Klynina
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
State Department ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
American Business ◽  
White House ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
Personal Diplomacy

The article is devoted to one of the United States Secretaries of State, Edward Stettinius, a political figure who is well known and ambiguous in American society and less well known in Ukraine. The author first reports on E. Stettinius’ emergence as a financier and a person involved in American business, and emphasizes that the victories in the business have attracted the attention of political circles in Washington and the White House. It is stated that with the outbreak of World War II, the United States introduced a land-lease program, administered at the request of Washington by Edward Stettinius. Following his successful experience in conducting a land-lease, US President Franklin Roosevelt began to think of involving E. Stettinius in leadership positions at the State Department, which could not cope with his functions due to the challenges of wartime. In addition, F. Roosevelt’s «personal diplomacy» and distrust of «foggy bottom» workers contributed to the decline in the authority and importance of the State Department in shaping the country’s foreign policy. It was for this purpose – to streamline the activities of the State Department and to put things in order inside of the structure – F. Roosevelt appointed E. Stettinius to the post of Deputy Secretary of State, and after the next fourth victory in the presidential election, he replaced then Secretary of State Cordell Hull. It is emphasized that E. Stettinius «correctly» understood his place in the issues of forming the foreign policy of the country. He did not interfere with F. Roosevelt’s «personal diplomacy», but at the same time he was always close and put his ideas into practice (as an example, the creation of the UN). And while the president was shaping the course of the country, he, E. Stettinius, was shaping the course for reorganizing the State Department.

scholarly journals Clash of Emotions: White House—State Department Relations during the Kennedy Administration

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-40
Author(s):  
Kasper Grotle Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
State Department ◽  
The State ◽  
First Year ◽  
Soviet Leader ◽  
White House ◽  
Berlin Crisis ◽  
Nikita Khrushchev ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Relationship

This article examines the rather poor emotional relationship between the White House and the State Department during 1961, the first year of the presidency of John F. Kennedy. The article argues that both sides had expectations of the relationship that turned into disappointments and that both sides felt that their approach and work was superior to the other. During the Berlin Crisis, this clash of emotions gained political significance concerning the case of the American response to a Soviet formal diplomatic note (an aide-mémoire) following the June 1961 Vienna Summit between Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. The White House and the State Department had different priorities and because of the poor emotional relationship they failed to find common ground. The end result was that the State Department won the battle by having its preferred version of the response sent to the Soviets. But the Department lost the war, because the White House used the opportunity to take control of Berlin policy at the expense of the State Department.

Trump will hamstring Tillerson at US State Department

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Foreign Aid ◽  
State Department ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
The State ◽  
Budget Cuts ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Content Type ◽  
White House

Significance Tillerson was initially viewed as one in a troika of stability-minded officials with more orthodox views on foreign policy than President Donald Trump, along with Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Advisor HR McMaster. However, in recent months Tillerson has been sidelined on policy formation and contradicted on messaging by the White House, raising questions about the former oil executive’s role within the administration. Impacts UN Ambassador Nikki Haley will offer a more traditional Republican critique of authoritarian regimes, but her voice remains marginal. White House refusal to appoint former Trump critics to the State Department will leave Tillerson with few internal allies. Bipartisan support in Congress for foreign aid and instability concerns will scupper the proposal to merge USAID with the State Department. However, Congress is likely to pass budget cuts for State and USAID, albeit at a less extreme level than the White House proposes.

1957—Stassen’s Gaffe?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence S. Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
State Department ◽  
The State ◽  
White House ◽  
Positive Side ◽  
Ambitious Program ◽  
Test Ban

In March 1957 a second round of talks of the UN Subcommittee on Disarmament began in London. Stassen remained the chief US delegate and exhibited his usual exuberant optimism. However, it would have been impossible for him to miss the signal sent from the White House when his disarmament duties were shifted to the State Department on March 1. The experience could not have been more humiliating. Although Stassen understood that he had many enemies in the administration who were pleased with the downgrading of his office, as always, he looked on the positive side of his situation. The inveterate optimist saw glimpses of light in Premier Bulganin’s correspondence with President Eisenhower. Stassen had originally believed that a test ban should be embedded in a complete disarmament package. But if this objective was unattainable, Bulganin presented the alternative of aerial inspections of preselected areas. Could this compromise lead to a more ambitious program?

Battlefield Casualties and Ballot-Box Defeat: Did the Bush–Obama Wars Cost Clinton the White House?

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-252
Author(s):  
Douglas L. Kriner ◽  
Francis X. Shen
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
The State ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
White House ◽  
Campaign Rhetoric ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Meaningful Relationships ◽  
The Military

ABSTRACTIn the 2016 election, foreign policy may have played a critically important role in swinging an important constituency to Donald Trump: voters in high-casualty communities that had abandoned Republican candidates in the mid-2000s. Trump’s iconoclastic campaign rhetoric promised a foreign policy that would simultaneously be more muscular and restrained. He promised to rebuild and refocus the military while avoiding the “stupid wars” and costly entanglements of his predecessors. At both the state and county levels, we find significant and substantively meaningful relationships between local casualty rates and support for Trump. Trump made significant electoral gains among constituencies that were exhausted and politically alienated by 18 years of fighting. Trump’s foreign policy shows a president beset by competing militaristic and isolationist impulses. Our results suggest that giving into the former may come at a significant electoral cost.

The State Department Speaks

1944 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-136
Author(s):  
Dexter Perkins
Keyword(s):  
State Department ◽  
The State
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document