I am just finishing up the book The Fog of War: Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.
Including excerpts from documents declassified during the 1990s and earlier this decade, it was edited and written by James G. Blight and janet M. Lang. They are two academics who served as advisors for the Academy Award-winning 2003 documentary film of the same name directed by Errol Morris, and who have written extensively about issues it explores. I am wondering if Josh knows either or both of them, as they teach at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Relations.
They utilize a method of history--not uncontroversial by any means--referred to as "critical oral history". Part of their work using this methodology has involved bringing together FTF decisionmaker participants at conferences exploring great events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the US entry into the Vietnam War. Participants are provided with extensive and shared briefing materials before these conferences, which have been held among other places in Cuba, Moscow and Vietnam as well as the US. Participants are encouraged at the conferences to do "interventions"--inquiring of a counterpart what their thoughts were at the time, or challenging them on assertions which they believe to be questionable or false.
The book is organized in the form of five lessons, drawn from the conferences and other work the authors have done going back 20 years or so.
Prompted by a MattY comment (I am unable to track down, sorry) making the point that just because appeasement didn't work in Munich doesn't mean it never works, here's just one little juicy tidbit (p. 1998, from an interview of "The Fog of War" film director Errol Morris by David Talbot of Salon.com, February 28, 2004.) Morris is here referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis:
Morris: "First of all, the Kennedy Administration had been given faulty information by the CIA. They had been told there were no Soviet warheads in Cuba. OK, so what should the President conclude? Perhaps the Joint Chiefs are absolutely right. Act sooner rather than later. Take out the missiles, take out the missile launchers and the missile sites before the warheads arrive. Although in fact several of these Joint Chiefs wanted to go a little further than Cuba, they wanted to go take out the Soviet Union and China as well. They had big appetites. But we now know that if LeMay and the other Joint Chiefs had had their way, and there was bombing and an invasion, the local Soviet commanders who had autonomy would have used those missiles with warheads against the United States. Can I say this with certainty? No. But was there a good likelihood if we invaded and bombed that they would reply? Yep. So that in this instance, 'appeasement' averted a catastrophe. The analogy to Munich isn't an analogy at all. People often make these analogies. What is Munich? It's a way of calling a leader like Kennedy a candy-ass. And because of your weakness, because of your policies, everyone will have to suffer. It will lead to an even worse catastrophe than you can imagine. In this instance--wrong! The diplomatic solution proved to be the correct one."
I highly recommend the book to the attention of those interested in the history of US foreign policy during the 1940's-1970s era or who might be interested in efforts to extract from that period lessons which may (in my view, do) have applicability to the conduct of current-day US foreign policy. To my way of thinking the book adds layers of rich detail, anecdote, and analysis to what could be addressed in the movie.
