James G Hershberg
Biographic Data
| ID | 1195201 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James G Hershberg |
| GIVEN NAMES | James G |
| FAMILY NAME | Hershberg |
| SIGNATURE | HERSHBERG J G |
| AFFILIATIONS | George Washington University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 26 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 27 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1985 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Was There a Viable “Third Force” in the Vietnam War
Sophie Quinn-Judge, The Third Force in the Vietnam War: The Elusive Search for Peace, 1954–75. London: I.B. Tauris, 2017. 336 pp. $110.00.Sophie Quinn-Judge makes an original and valuable contribution to Vietnam War scholarship by excavating the nearly forgotten—and largely unnoticed at the time—story of Vietnamese, mostly in the South, who waged a forlorn and ultimately doomed struggle to forge a “third way” between the Communism promoted by Han…
Reexamining the Cuban Missile Crisis Six Decades Later
Serhii Plokhy, Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton, 2021. 480 pp. $35.00 cloth, $22.00 paper.When reviewing Michael Dobbs's “One Minute to Midnight” in 2008, the late diplomat Richard Holbrooke began, “Any new entry in the crowded field of books on the 1962 Cuban missile crisis must pass an immediate test: Is it just another recapitulation, or does it increase our net understanding of this seminal cold war…
The Making of a Cold War President
Editor's Introduction: Many thousands of books—more than 40,000 by most estimates—and countless articles have appeared over the past 60 years about the short life and interrupted presidency of John F. Kennedy, the youngest man ever elected as U.S. president. During his presidency he had to contend with two of the most severe Cold War crises—the Berlin crisis of 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, both of which came perilously close to prov…
Soviet-Brazilian Relations and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Using materials from the Russian Foreign Ministry archive in Moscow (combined with previously obtained Brazilian and U.S. sources), this research note presents fresh evidence about Soviet-Brazilian relations and the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, supplementing a detailed, two-part article published in the Journal of Cold War Studies in 2004 exploring Brazil's secret mediation between John F. Kennedy and Fidel Castro at the height of the crisi…
Man of the Hour
Nearly thirty years ago, as I was researching a study of James B. Conant (1893–1978)—chemist, Harvard University president, Manhattan Project administrator, diplomat (Ike's man in Germany), and more—I interviewed the great man's granddaughter, Jennet. Although she was only a teenager when he died, she offered insights about various aspects of her grandfather's life, making clear that she was a perceptive and articulate observer.In the ensuing yea…
Collateral Damage? “Marigold,” Franco–American Relations, and Secret Vietnam Peace Diplomacy, 1966–1967
The Vietnam War exacerbated the already tense relationship between Charles de Gaulle and Lyndon B. Johnson; and Franco–American relations reached a nadir in winter 1966–1967 when de Gaulle vetoed a proposed visit to Hanoi by Jean Sainteny, a former colonial official, who Washington had desired to probe North Vietnam’s position. This analysis adds a new wrinkle to the story. Building on research for Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam (…
David K. Hecht. Storytelling and Science
Peace Proposals, Diplomacy, and War
This forum includes essays by six leading experts on the Vietnam War discussing the recent book by James G. Hershberg, Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), which recounts the various secret efforts mediated by East European governments to foster peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam that would bring an end to the war. All of the commentators praise the book and the scope…
Reflections on George F. Kennan
Nine experts on Cold War history offer commentaries about John Lewis Gaddis's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of George F. Kennan, the first head of the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Staff. The commentators come from several countries and offer a wide range of perspectives about Gaddis's George F. Kennan: An American Life, published by Penguin Books in 2011. Although most of the commentators express highly favorable assessments of the …
A fiery peace in a Cold War
The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan
High-Spirited Confusion’
The article recounts the story, hidden until now, of Brazil's abortive attempt to send an observer to the September 1961 Belgrade conference – the founding gathering of the Non-Aligned Movement, a follow-on to the 1955 Bandung conference of newly-independent, decolonizing nations from Africa and Asia. Using declassified Brazilian as well as US and British sources, the article illustrates Washington's ambivalence toward what it saw as the Brazilia…
Reading and Warning the Likely Enemy
Vietnam War reached a critical juncture early in 1965 when the People's Republic of China warned the United States, which had launched Operation Rolling Thunder, the massive and continuous bombardment of North Vietnam, that if it continued to escalate its military involvement, China would do everything necessary, even at the risk of a major confrontation, to 'assist Vietnam and resist America'.1 China and the United States appeared to be on cours…
The United States, Brazil, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (Part 2)
Though virtually ignored in the historiography, Brazil played an intriguing role in the politics and diplomacy of the Cuban missile crisis and in U.S. Cuban relations during the Kennedy administration. In the years after Fidel Castro took power, successive Brazilian governments tried secretly to mediate between Washington and Havana as their mutual confrontation intensified. Newly available U.S., Brazilian, Cuban, and other sources reveal that th…
The United States, Brazil, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (Part 1)
Though virtually ignored in the historiography, Brazil played an intriguing role in the politics and diplomacy of the Cuban missile crisis and in U.S. Cuban relations during the Kennedy administration. In the years after Fidel Castro took power, successive Brazilian governments tried secretly to mediate between the United States and Cuba as the two countries' mutual confrontation intensified. Newly available U.S., Brazilian, Cuban, and other sour…
Where the Buck Stopped
Anyone who bought stock in Harry S Truman’s historical and public reputation shortly before the end of the Cold War has made a killing: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent mood of self-congratulation, combined with disillusionment about modern-day U.S. presidents’ conduct, both official and personal, precipitated a spike in nostalgia for and celebration of the Truman presidency among the public, politicians, and a number of promin…
Peace Probes and the Bombing Pause
Archival materials from Budapest and Warsaw have shed valuable light on the role that Hungary and Poland played as intermediaries between Washington and Hanoi during the 37-day pause in the U.S. bombing campaign against North Vietnam in December 1965–January 1966. It is now possible to trace contacts between the East European countries and Hanoi and to see how the Hungarian and Polish governments coordinated their diplomatic activities with the S…
The war in Afghanistan and the Iran-Contra affair
Though they were crucial international events during the 1980s, the final decade of the Cold War, the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Iran-Contra affair are usually considered in isolation from each other. The present article draws together declassified evidence to trace previously ignored connections between them, demonstrating that the secret arms dealings with Iran carried out by the Reagan administration's National Security Council staff in…
Kennedy, Macmillan, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1961-63
Journal Article Kennedy, Macmillan, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1961–63. By Kendrick Oliver. (New York: St. Martin's, 1998. x, 252 pp. $65.00, ISBN 0-312-17599-X.) Get access James G. Hershberg James G. Hershberg George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 87, Issue 2, September 2000, Pages 737–738, https://doi.org/10.2307/2568895 …
James B. Conant
James B. Conant (1893-1978) was one of the giants of the American establishment in the twentieth century. President of Harvard University from 1933 to 1953, he was also a scientist who led the US government's effort to develop weapons of mass destruction, and his story mirrors the transition of the United States from isolationism to global superpower at the dawn of the nuclear age. 'This splendid portrait of Conant ...illuminates the life of a pi…
Operation Crossroads
Journal Article Operation Crossroads: The Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll. By Jonathan M. Weisgall. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994. xx, 415 pp. $31.95, ISBN 1-55750-919-0.) Get access James Hershberg James Hershberg Wilson Center, Washington, D.C. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 82, Issue 3, December 1995, Pages 1281–1282, https://doi.org/10.2307/2945257 Published:…
James B. Conant
Journal Article James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age. By James G. Hershberg. (New York: Knopf, 1993. x, 948 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-394-57966-6.) Get access David S. Patterson David S. Patterson U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 81, Issue 4, March 1995, Page 1800, https://doi.org/10.2307/2081813 Publi…
James B. Conant
"Explosion in the Offing"
Journalist Alistair Horne observed in 1956 that Germany, “elevated from her cataclysmic defeat by the irony of history to a key position between East and West, holds the balance of power in the cold war.”1 Historians still agree with that assessment. From the Cold War's beginning to its sudden end, Germany was a symbol and catalyst of U.S.-Soviet rivalry. In the first half of the 1950s the divided country emerged as the rope in the global tug-of-…
Before "The Missies of October"
Was the Kennedy administration moving toward a military attack on Cuba in the fall of 1962, even before it discovered Soviet strategic missiles on the island? Recently declassified evidence and fresh controversy compel a new look at this infrequently examined question. Although this article does not offer a definitive answer, it presents new information, interpretations, and hypotheses regarding U.S. behavior in the period leading up to the Cuban…
The United States, Brazil, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (Part 1)
Though virtually ignored in the historiography, Brazil played an intriguing role in the politics and diplomacy of the Cuban missile crisis and in U.S. Cuban relations during the Kennedy administration. In the years after Fidel Castro took power, successive Brazilian governments tried secretly to mediate between the United States and Cuba as the two countries' mutual confrontation intensified. Newly available U.S., Brazilian, Cuban, and other sour…
The United States, Brazil, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (Part 2)
Though virtually ignored in the historiography, Brazil played an intriguing role in the politics and diplomacy of the Cuban missile crisis and in U.S. Cuban relations during the Kennedy administration. In the years after Fidel Castro took power, successive Brazilian governments tried secretly to mediate between Washington and Havana as their mutual confrontation intensified. Newly available U.S., Brazilian, Cuban, and other sources reveal that th…
High-Spirited Confusion’
The article recounts the story, hidden until now, of Brazil's abortive attempt to send an observer to the September 1961 Belgrade conference – the founding gathering of the Non-Aligned Movement, a follow-on to the 1955 Bandung conference of newly-independent, decolonizing nations from Africa and Asia. Using declassified Brazilian as well as US and British sources, the article illustrates Washington's ambivalence toward what it saw as the Brazilia…
Reading and Warning the Likely Enemy
Vietnam War reached a critical juncture early in 1965 when the People's Republic of China warned the United States, which had launched Operation Rolling Thunder, the massive and continuous bombardment of North Vietnam, that if it continued to escalate its military involvement, China would do everything necessary, even at the risk of a major confrontation, to 'assist Vietnam and resist America'.1 China and the United States appeared to be on cours…
Soviet-Brazilian Relations and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Using materials from the Russian Foreign Ministry archive in Moscow (combined with previously obtained Brazilian and U.S. sources), this research note presents fresh evidence about Soviet-Brazilian relations and the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, supplementing a detailed, two-part article published in the Journal of Cold War Studies in 2004 exploring Brazil's secret mediation between John F. Kennedy and Fidel Castro at the height of the crisi…
Collateral Damage? “Marigold,” Franco–American Relations, and Secret Vietnam Peace Diplomacy, 1966–1967
The Vietnam War exacerbated the already tense relationship between Charles de Gaulle and Lyndon B. Johnson; and Franco–American relations reached a nadir in winter 1966–1967 when de Gaulle vetoed a proposed visit to Hanoi by Jean Sainteny, a former colonial official, who Washington had desired to probe North Vietnam’s position. This analysis adds a new wrinkle to the story. Building on research for Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam (…
Peace Probes and the Bombing Pause
Archival materials from Budapest and Warsaw have shed valuable light on the role that Hungary and Poland played as intermediaries between Washington and Hanoi during the 37-day pause in the U.S. bombing campaign against North Vietnam in December 1965–January 1966. It is now possible to trace contacts between the East European countries and Hanoi and to see how the Hungarian and Polish governments coordinated their diplomatic activities with the S…
James B. Conant
On the Brink
James B. conant and the atomic bomb
(1985). James B. conant and the atomic bomb. Journal of Strategic Studies: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 78-92
Before "The Missies of October"
Was the Kennedy administration moving toward a military attack on Cuba in the fall of 1962, even before it discovered Soviet strategic missiles on the island? Recently declassified evidence and fresh controversy compel a new look at this infrequently examined question. Although this article does not offer a definitive answer, it presents new information, interpretations, and hypotheses regarding U.S. behavior in the period leading up to the Cuban…
On the Brink
"Explosion in the Offing"
Journalist Alistair Horne observed in 1956 that Germany, “elevated from her cataclysmic defeat by the irony of history to a key position between East and West, holds the balance of power in the cold war.”1 Historians still agree with that assessment. From the Cold War's beginning to its sudden end, Germany was a symbol and catalyst of U.S.-Soviet rivalry. In the first half of the 1950s the divided country emerged as the rope in the global tug-of-…
James B. Conant
Operation Crossroads
Journal Article Operation Crossroads: The Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll. By Jonathan M. Weisgall. (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994. xx, 415 pp. $31.95, ISBN 1-55750-919-0.) Get access James Hershberg James Hershberg Wilson Center, Washington, D.C. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 82, Issue 3, December 1995, Pages 1281–1282, https://doi.org/10.2307/2945257 Published:…
James B. Conant
Journal Article James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age. By James G. Hershberg. (New York: Knopf, 1993. x, 948 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-394-57966-6.) Get access David S. Patterson David S. Patterson U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 81, Issue 4, March 1995, Page 1800, https://doi.org/10.2307/2081813 Publi…
James B. Conant
James B. Conant (1893-1978) was one of the giants of the American establishment in the twentieth century. President of Harvard University from 1933 to 1953, he was also a scientist who led the US government's effort to develop weapons of mass destruction, and his story mirrors the transition of the United States from isolationism to global superpower at the dawn of the nuclear age. 'This splendid portrait of Conant ...illuminates the life of a pi…
Kennedy, Macmillan, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1961-63
Journal Article Kennedy, Macmillan, and the Nuclear Test-Ban Debate, 1961–63. By Kendrick Oliver. (New York: St. Martin's, 1998. x, 252 pp. $65.00, ISBN 0-312-17599-X.) Get access James G. Hershberg James G. Hershberg George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 87, Issue 2, September 2000, Pages 737–738, https://doi.org/10.2307/2568895 …
Where the Buck Stopped
Anyone who bought stock in Harry S Truman’s historical and public reputation shortly before the end of the Cold War has made a killing: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent mood of self-congratulation, combined with disillusionment about modern-day U.S. presidents’ conduct, both official and personal, precipitated a spike in nostalgia for and celebration of the Truman presidency among the public, politicians, and a number of promin…
Peace Probes and the Bombing Pause
Archival materials from Budapest and Warsaw have shed valuable light on the role that Hungary and Poland played as intermediaries between Washington and Hanoi during the 37-day pause in the U.S. bombing campaign against North Vietnam in December 1965–January 1966. It is now possible to trace contacts between the East European countries and Hanoi and to see how the Hungarian and Polish governments coordinated their diplomatic activities with the S…
The war in Afghanistan and the Iran-Contra affair
Though they were crucial international events during the 1980s, the final decade of the Cold War, the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Iran-Contra affair are usually considered in isolation from each other. The present article draws together declassified evidence to trace previously ignored connections between them, demonstrating that the secret arms dealings with Iran carried out by the Reagan administration's National Security Council staff in…
The United States, Brazil, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (Part 2)
Though virtually ignored in the historiography, Brazil played an intriguing role in the politics and diplomacy of the Cuban missile crisis and in U.S. Cuban relations during the Kennedy administration. In the years after Fidel Castro took power, successive Brazilian governments tried secretly to mediate between Washington and Havana as their mutual confrontation intensified. Newly available U.S., Brazilian, Cuban, and other sources reveal that th…
The United States, Brazil, and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (Part 1)
Though virtually ignored in the historiography, Brazil played an intriguing role in the politics and diplomacy of the Cuban missile crisis and in U.S. Cuban relations during the Kennedy administration. In the years after Fidel Castro took power, successive Brazilian governments tried secretly to mediate between the United States and Cuba as the two countries' mutual confrontation intensified. Newly available U.S., Brazilian, Cuban, and other sour…
Reading and Warning the Likely Enemy
Vietnam War reached a critical juncture early in 1965 when the People's Republic of China warned the United States, which had launched Operation Rolling Thunder, the massive and continuous bombardment of North Vietnam, that if it continued to escalate its military involvement, China would do everything necessary, even at the risk of a major confrontation, to 'assist Vietnam and resist America'.1 China and the United States appeared to be on cours…
High-Spirited Confusion’
The article recounts the story, hidden until now, of Brazil's abortive attempt to send an observer to the September 1961 Belgrade conference – the founding gathering of the Non-Aligned Movement, a follow-on to the 1955 Bandung conference of newly-independent, decolonizing nations from Africa and Asia. Using declassified Brazilian as well as US and British sources, the article illustrates Washington's ambivalence toward what it saw as the Brazilia…
The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan
A fiery peace in a Cold War
Reflections on George F. Kennan
Nine experts on Cold War history offer commentaries about John Lewis Gaddis's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of George F. Kennan, the first head of the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Staff. The commentators come from several countries and offer a wide range of perspectives about Gaddis's George F. Kennan: An American Life, published by Penguin Books in 2011. Although most of the commentators express highly favorable assessments of the …
Peace Proposals, Diplomacy, and War
This forum includes essays by six leading experts on the Vietnam War discussing the recent book by James G. Hershberg, Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), which recounts the various secret efforts mediated by East European governments to foster peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam that would bring an end to the war. All of the commentators praise the book and the scope…
David K. Hecht. Storytelling and Science
Collateral Damage? “Marigold,” Franco–American Relations, and Secret Vietnam Peace Diplomacy, 1966–1967
The Vietnam War exacerbated the already tense relationship between Charles de Gaulle and Lyndon B. Johnson; and Franco–American relations reached a nadir in winter 1966–1967 when de Gaulle vetoed a proposed visit to Hanoi by Jean Sainteny, a former colonial official, who Washington had desired to probe North Vietnam’s position. This analysis adds a new wrinkle to the story. Building on research for Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam (…
Man of the Hour
Nearly thirty years ago, as I was researching a study of James B. Conant (1893–1978)—chemist, Harvard University president, Manhattan Project administrator, diplomat (Ike's man in Germany), and more—I interviewed the great man's granddaughter, Jennet. Although she was only a teenager when he died, she offered insights about various aspects of her grandfather's life, making clear that she was a perceptive and articulate observer.In the ensuing yea…
Soviet-Brazilian Relations and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Using materials from the Russian Foreign Ministry archive in Moscow (combined with previously obtained Brazilian and U.S. sources), this research note presents fresh evidence about Soviet-Brazilian relations and the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis, supplementing a detailed, two-part article published in the Journal of Cold War Studies in 2004 exploring Brazil's secret mediation between John F. Kennedy and Fidel Castro at the height of the crisi…
Reexamining the Cuban Missile Crisis Six Decades Later
Serhii Plokhy, Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton, 2021. 480 pp. $35.00 cloth, $22.00 paper.When reviewing Michael Dobbs's “One Minute to Midnight” in 2008, the late diplomat Richard Holbrooke began, “Any new entry in the crowded field of books on the 1962 Cuban missile crisis must pass an immediate test: Is it just another recapitulation, or does it increase our net understanding of this seminal cold war…
History (24 works) · Political science (22 works) · History (21 works) · Law (19 works) · Law (19 works) · Politics (16 works) · Economic history (13 works) · Cold war (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Political economy (10 works)