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Kennedy's Quest For Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961-1963

Edited by Thomas G. Paterson
Reviewed by By Gaddis Smith
Summer 1989
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Edited by Thomas G. Paterson
Oxford
1989
407 pp.
$34.50

Here are first-class archivally based articles on specific aspects of foreign policy in the Kennedy years, written for the most part by a younger generation of historians. The book can serve, incidentally, as a guide to the sources for further research. The editor's introductory assessment is very harsh, debunking the belief that Kennedy was "a fallen hero who never had a chance. Actually, he had his chance, and he failed." The individual articles, looking at the world's principal regions, support that bleak conclusion.

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