This talk is part of the online conference The National-Security State and the Kennedy Administration.
Jim DiEugenio has been studying President Kennedy’s policies in the Third World for over seven years. His talk will trace the genesis of Kennedy’s reformist ideas in that area from 1951 onward to his presidency. He will then review four specific areas of the globe where the listener can distinctly see a break with the previous Dwight Eisenhower/John Foster Dulles view of the Third World. These areas would be the Congo, the Middle East, specifically towards Nasser in Egypt, Achmed Sukarno in Indonesia, and the Alliance for Progress in Latin America. He will show not just how Kennedy attained his ideas, but also how he attempted to enact his policies once in office, and then how his concepts were then done away with after his presidency.