About this item
History is being made in U.S.-Cuban relations right now. This powerful book is essential to making sense of the new and ongoing steps towards normalization between the longtime antagonists. Challenging the conventional wisdom of perpetual hostility between the United States and Cuba--beyond invasions, covert operations, assassination plots using poison pens and exploding seashells, and a grinding economic embargo--Back Channel to Cuba chronicles a surprising, untold history of bilateral efforts toward rapprochement and reconciliation. Since 1959, conflict and aggression have dominated the story of the United States and Cuba. Now, William M. LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh present a remarkably new and relevant account. From John F. Kennedys offering of an olive branch to Fidel Castro after the missile crisis, to Henry Kissingers top secret quest for normalization, to Barack Obamas promise of a new approach, LeoGrande and Kornbluh reveal a fifty-year record of dialogue and negotiations, both open and furtive, indicating a path toward a world beyond the legacy of hostility.
About the Author
William M. LeoGrande is Professor of Government and Dean Emeritus of the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. He has written widely on Latin America and U.S.-Latin American relations. He is the author of Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992 (University of North Carolina Press, 1998) , and co-author of Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana (University of North Carolina Press, 2014) . He is also co-editor of A Contemporary Cuba Reader: The Revolution Under Raúl Castro, among other books. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, The Nation, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, LeMonde Diplomatique and other journals and newspapers.
