Blight, James G. The Shattered Crystal Ball: Fear and Learning in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1990. Blight, James G. The Shattered Crystal Ball: Fear and Learning in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1990.
Smith, FA (Winter 1990-1991), finds that "this study is original and important because it addresses the question of how the imminent possibility of the nuclear death of tens of millions affected the thinking of those whose miscalculations could make real the awful chance.... [T]he recognition and fear of mass nuclear death induced a special kind of prudence that transcended the conventional calculations of power and national advantage." A Choice reviewer says this is a "superb book" that is "elegantly written" and "intense." Blight "marries the disciplines of psychology, literature, and political science."
[GenPostwar/60s/MissileCrisis]
Blight, James
G., Bruce J. Allyn, and David A. Welch. Cuba on the Brink: Castro, the
Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse. New York: Pantheon, 1993.
According to Surveillant 3.4/5, this "account of a unique conference held in Havana in 1992" provides an "illuminating account of Castro's view of the American threat -- then and now." This is an "extraordinary examination of an international crisis." To this Maxwell, FA 73.2 (1994), adds that Cuba on the Brink is "essential reading for any serious student of international affairs."
[GenPostwar/60s/MissileCrisis]
Blight, James
G., Joseph S. Nye, Jr., and David A. Welch. "The Cuban Missile Crisis
Revisited." Foreign Affairs 60, no. 4 (Fall 1987): 170-188.
[GenPostwar/60s/MissileCrisis]
Blight, James
G., and David A. Welch. On the Brink: Americans and Soviets Reexamine
the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Hill & Wang, 1989. 2d ed. New
York: Noonday, 1990.
[GenPostwar/60s/MissileCrisis]
Blight, James
G., and David A. Welch. "Risking 'The Destruction of Nations': Lessons
of the Cuban Missile Crisis for New and Aspiring Nuclear States." Security
Studies 4, no. 4 (Summer 1994): 811-850.
[GenPostwar/60s/MissileCrisis]
Blight,
James G., and Peter Kornbluh, eds. The Politics of Illusion: The Bay of Pigs Invasion Reexamined. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998.
According to Maxwell, FA 77.3 (May-Jun. 1998), this edited volume consists of "the transcripts of an extraordinary discussion between many of the key participants" in the Bay of Pigs invasion. The conclusion was that "delusion rather than betrayal was the fundamental cause of the disaster." Jeffrey-Jones, I&NS 13.4, calls the appendix to Politics of Illusion "a splendid compilation," but also finds that "the documents are not properly identified.... [N]owhere is one told the precise provenance of the document concerned.... The book has a unifying overview, namely that everyone from the President down suffered from a 'John Wayne complex', consisting of the belief that the USA could not fail."
[CIA/60s/BoP]
Blight, James
G., David Lewis, and David A. Welch, eds. Cuba Between the Superpowers: The Antigua Conference on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Providence, RI: Center for Foreign Policy Development, Thomas J. Watson, Jr., Institute for International Studies, Brown University, 1991.
[GenPostwar/60s/MissileCrisis]
Blight, James
G., and David A. Welch, eds.
1. "Special Issue on 'Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis.'" Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 3 (Autumn 1998): Entire edition.
Includes the editors' opening and closing essays, respectively "What Can Intelligence Tell Us about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and What Can the Cuban Missile Crisis Tell Us about Intelligence" (pp. 1-17) and "The Cuban Missile Crisis and Intelligence Performance" (p. 217ff).
2. Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis. London: Frank Cass, 1998.
The articles here were originally published in Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 3 (Autumn 1998).
[GenPostwar/60s/MissileCrisis]
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