Screening and Discussion

The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

with

James G. Blight and janet M. Lang

Watson Institute for International Studies — Brown University

Sponsored by Choices for the 21st Century Education Program
Friday, November 19, 1:30 - 3:30 PM
Convention Center — Room 308

JAMES G. BLIGHT and JANET M. LANG served as principal substantive advisors to Errol Morris and to Robert McNamara during the filming of "The Fog of War." The film is based on nearly twenty years of research by Blight and Lang in collaboration with McNamara and many others from the Kennedy and Johnson administrations: on the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, and the escalation of the Vietnam war between 1961 and 1968. Nearly two dozen international conferences, several books, and dozens of articles have resulted from this research, which was synthesized by McNamara and Blight in their 2001 book, Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing and Catastrophe in the 21st Century. In fall 2003, Blight and Lang worked with the Choices for the 21 st Century Education Program at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies on the development of lessons plans to accompany the film.

Blight and Lang will introduce the screening of a specially edited 37-minute version of "The Fog of War." This edited version will focus on the Cuban missile crisis and the escalation of the Vietnam War. Following the screening, they will lead a discussion of the film and its uses in the classroom.

JAMES G. BLIGHT is Professor of International Relations (Research) at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. Blight began his academic career as a cognitive psychologist, but later turned his attention to a new method for investigating post-World War II U.S. foreign policy conflicts and crises. The method, critical oral history, makes use of memories of key decisionmakers, scholars, and declassified documents, to generate new data and interpretations of events. Professor Blight and his colleagues have applied this method to the Cuban missile crisis, Bay of Pigs invasion, collapse of U.S.-Soviet detente in the Carter-Brezhnev period, and U.S. war in Vietnam. Blight is the author of a dozen books on the recent history of U.S. foreign policy, the most recent being 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, expanded paperback edition, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002); Wilson's Ghost: Reducing the Risk of Conflict, Killing and Catastrophe in the 21st Century (with Robert S. McNamara, PublicAffairs, 2001, expanded paperback edition, 2003); and Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy (with Robert S. McNamara and Robert K. Brigham, PublicAffairs, 1999). His upcoming book, The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, (with janet Lang) will be published in fall 2004 by Rowman & Littlefield. Professor Blight has also served as a consultant on more than a dozen documentary films on the Cuban missile crisis and the Vietnam War, including, "The Other Side of Armageddon" (2002), a production of the BBC that revealed the Cuban role in the crisis; and "Fidel Castro," a two-part documentary on the life of the Cuban leader, which will air in early 2005 as part of the PBS series, "The American Experience."

JANET M. LANG is Adjunct Associate Professor, International Relations (Research) at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, where she is co-director (with James G. Blight) of the Critical Oral History Project. She has been the project director for nearly two dozen international conferences: on the Cuban missile crisis, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Vietnam War, and the collapse of U.S.-Soviet detente during the Carter administration. She has done seminal work on the method of critical oral history, which she and Professor Blight have used at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (1985-1989) and at the Watson Institute (1990-present). She is the author or co-author of many articles deriving from these projects, including "The Burden of Nuclear Responsibility: Reflections on the Critical Oral History of the Cuban Missile Crisis" (in Peace and Conflict, 1995, with James G. Blight), and most recently A Quiet Revolution (2003), a history of the Critical Oral History Project's research on the missile crisis. Lang is currently at work on a project, and book, called Kennedy, Johnson and Vietnam: The Impact of the Presidential Transition on the Course of the War, and its Implications for U.S. Foreign and Defense Policy. The initial findings from this project (being carried out with James G. Blight and David A. Welch of the University of Toronto) will be presented in April 2005, on the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the symbolic end of the American war in Vietnam. Lang holds doctorates in both experimental psychology and epidemiology and is associate professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health, from which she is currently on a medical leave of absence.

The Teacher's Guide for The Fog of War is available from the Choices Program.