Frederick Kempe, author of the bestseller, Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth, will be our guest for the hour on Thursday’s Access Utah.
Kempe, President and CEO of the Atlantic Council (a Washington think tank) gave a lecture at Westminster College earlier in the week titled: “From Kennedy to Obama: How Presidential Decisions Shape History and Foreign Policy.” Kempe calls Kennedy’s record during 1961 one of the worst inaugural year foreign policy performances of any modern presidency; though he does say that President Kennedy learned on the job and performed better the following year. We’ll talk about Kennedy’s responses to the problems of that year, which included the Bay of Pigs, the Vienna Summit, the construction of the Berlin Wall and a showdown of tanks at Checkpoint Charlie, and apply lessons learned to decisions President Obama must make today, including how to approach the situation in Iran, and reaction to the events of the Arab Spring.
As always, your comments are welcome below orby emailor feel free to call in during the show.
