Scholars Online
Jim Blight
Watson Institute for International Studies – Brown University
Filmed in April 2008.
- Who are you and what do you do? [Jim Blight - 0:38]
- Who are you and what do you do? [janet Lang - 0:41]
- How did many Cubans view U.S. influence in Cuba in the 1950s? [1:24]
- What were U.S.-Cuban relations like leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis? [1:42]
- What was the Bay of Pigs invasion and why was it significant? [2:11]
- What did Kennedy learn from the Bay of Pigs invasion? [1:44]
- Why did Cuba align itself with the Soviet Union? [2:24]
- How did different national perspectives lead to three names for the crisis? [1:26]
- How did Kennedy's thinking change during the crisis? [3:04]
- How did Kennedy react to Khrushchev's letters of October 26 and 27? [2:44]
- How did Khrushchev react to Castro's letter of October 26? [2:10]
- How did Americans, Soviets, and Cubans react to the crisis? [2:40]
- What lessons did Cubans take from the crisis? [1:16]
- What could have happened if the United States had attacked Cuba?[2:27]
- How did Soviet submarines increase the chance of nuclear war? [3:30]
- How close did we come to nuclear war? [3:04]
- What is critical oral history? [1:32]
- What is the value of bringing former adversaries together? [1:23]
- What lessons have you learned from critical oral history? [1:41]
- What advice did General Curtis LeMay give Kennedy? [1:25]
Jim Blight is a professor of international relations (research) at the Watson Institute. He developed a method of inquiry called critical oral history, which makes use of memories of key decision makers, scholars and their research, and declassified documents to generate new data and interpretations of events. He is the author of a dozen books on the recent history of US foreign policy, including Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis (with Philip Brenner, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), Cuba on the Brink: Castro, the Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Collapse (with David A. Welch, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing and Catastrophe in the 21st Century (with Robert S. McNamara, PublicAffairs, 2001), and Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (with Robert S. McNamara and Robert K. Brigham, PublicAffairs, 1999). Blight has also served as a consultant on several documentary film projects with many domestic and foreign broadcast organizations and individual filmmakers.
