Past Kennedy Library Forums

Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Special Counsel to the President Theodore Sorensen discussed the Cuban Missile Crisis as they experienced it as senior advisors to President Kennedy. Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant moderated.

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How do historians now view the missile crisis and what effect did this event have on Cuban-Soviet relations? Historians James Blight, Philip Brenner, Julia Sweig, and Svetlana Savranskaya discussed the crisis and its aftermath in a session moderated by Graham Allison.

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Humorist Al Franken, White House reporter Helen Thomas, and Senator Alan Simpson discussed the use of humor in our national politics.  CNN senior correspondent Jeff Greenfield moderated. 

From the White House to the Kremlin to Havana, Kennedy advisors Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Theodore Sorensen, Nikita Khrushchev's son, Sergei Khrushchev, and Cuban Ambassador Dagoberto Rodriguez discussed the events of October 1962.

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Once again the U.S. and the world were debating whether to invade a country without knowing whether it possesses weapons of mass destruction - and whether invasion will do more to prevent or provoke their use. In this session numerous experts including former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter examined the most recent developments in U.S. foreign policy toward Iraq.

What role did the media play during the Missile Crisis in the attempt to avert the nuclear war? Should our country face another confrontation of this magnitude how would today's media respond? Panelists included White House correspondents Sander Vanocur and Robert Pierpont and former FCC Chair Newton Minow.

Are the tactics that successfully led to the end of legalized segregation in the United States effective in current efforts to advance civil rights and human rights at home and abroad? Callie Crossley of WGBH moderates a discussion with Reverend Jesse Jackson.

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The pandemic of AIDS has cost over 24 million lives. On International Human Rights Day, this forum, co-sponsored by a number of Boston-based human rights organizations, explored the world's response to AIDS through a human rights perspective.  Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, delivered opening remarks and was followed by a panel discussion with Eric Sawyer, founder of ACT UP; Sandra Thurman, Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy in the Clinton administration; Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners In Health; and George Muwanguzi, Director of the Heath Rights Action Group in Uganda.  Susanna Sirkin, Deputy Director of Physicians for Human Rights, moderated. 

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In her newest book, The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy, Professor Lani Guinier proposed new ways to confront race in the twenty-first century, calling for the building of grass-roots, cross-racial coalitions to reform the process of our democracy.

In the wake of the upheavals in corporate America, Orin Smith, President and CEO of Starbucks Coffee; Richard Donahue, Vice Chairman of the Board of Nike; and, Eliot Spitzer, New York Attorney General, discussed corporate responsibility both in general and as it relates to the advancement of human rights at home and abroad.  Rosabeth Moss Kanter, of the Harvard Business School, moderated.

Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, and Elizabeth Neuffer, author of The Key to My Neighbor's House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda, examined U.S. responses to genocide since the Holocaust.  Jacqueline Bhabha, Executive Director of the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights and lecturer at both Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government, moderated. 

Senator John Kerry, presidential candidate in 2004, engaged in a discussion on issues including foreign affaris, environmental protection, domestic security, civil rights and liberties, and the economy.  Moderating the conversation was former Boston Globe columnist David Nyhan. 

Bob Schieffer, chief CBS News Washington correspondent and moderator of Face the Nation, shared stories from his new book, This Just In: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV, chronicling the major public figures he has covered and the sweep of American history he has reported on over the past 40 years as a journalist.

Former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis moderated a conversation with Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, author of Speak Truth to Power and daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, Loune Viaud, 2002 recipient of the RFK Human Rights Award, and Peter Edelman, former legislative aide to Robert F. Kennedy and author of Searching for America's Heart: RFK and the Renewal of Hope.

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2003 marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of President Eisenhower's eight years in office.  The Library continued its examination of 20th century presidents with a session featuring President Eisenhower's granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower, and presidential historian Fred Greenstein, author of The HiddenHand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader discussing the policies and style of President Eisenhower.  Richard Immerman moderated. 

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Former National security Advisor Sandy Berger and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter discussed how the U.S. should best respond to the growing threat of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.  WBUR's Bill Delaney moderated. 

Allida Black, editor of the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, led a discussion on these two towering figures of the 20th century and their positions on politics, international affairs, and human rights.

Former Senator Bob Kerrey engaged in a wide-ranging conversation on Vietnam and its aftermath, international justice, war crimes and terrorism, and the importance of pulic service and political ccourage in our time with the host of WBUR's The Connection Dick Gordon.

Former Governor Howard Dean, presidential candidate in 2004, discussed his positions on a range of domestic and foreign policy issues facing the nation.  Joe Klein moderated.

Journalist Juan Williams facilitated a conversation about the role of non-violence in the civil rights movement with civil rights leaders Diane Nash,  the Reverend James Lawson and former Kennedy administration official John Seigenthaler. 

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Former U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky will provide remarks as part of the PEN/Hemingway Award ceremony hosted annually by the Kennedy Library which is home to the Hemingway archives. 

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Congressman John Lewis led a discussion on the March on Washington, its planning, implementation, and the effect it had on the coutnry.  Harvard University's Randall Kennedy  moderated.

Former Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, Harvard sociologist Michael Dawson, and Jeremy Meyer, author of Running on Race, Racial Politics in Presidential Campaigns, 1960-2000 discussed the role of race in past and future presidential elections.

Senator John Edwards, presidential candidate in 2004, discussed his positions on a range of domestic and foreign policy issues facing the nation.  Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant moderated.

Join Rory Kennedy, youngest daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, at a premiere of her newest documentary film, Pandemic: Facing AIDS, which depicts the challenges and triumphs of five ordinary people in different regions of the world living with AIDS.  Nan Richardson, founder of Umbrage Editions and one of her collabortors on the project, joined her.  Jeanne Blake, medical reporter for Boston's NBC affiliate, moderated. 

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Prize-winning author Robert Dallek launched his newest biography An Unfinished Life;:John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963.  William Leuchtenburg moderated.

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Senator Edward Kennedy introduced former President Bill Clinton, who discussed domestic and foreign policy with historian Michael Beschloss. 

NPR's senior European correspondent Sylvia Poggioli engaged in a conversation with WBUR's Dick Gordon on how Europeans perceive President Bush, U.S. foreign policy, and the crisis in the American Catholic Church.

On the 40th anniversary of President Kennedy's address to the nation on civil rights, historian Roger Wilkins, author of Jefferson's Pillow: America and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism and biographer Taylor Branch, author of Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, discussed Martin Luther King, Jr., JFK, and the civil rights milestones of 1963.

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Paul "Red" Fay, who served as Undersecretary of the Navy in the Kennedy Administration, recounted his friendship with John F. Kennedy, beginning as PT-109 crewmates in World War II.

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer engaged in a discussion with NPR legal correspondent Nina Totenberg concerning the judicial issues facing the country today.

NPR foreign correspondent Anne Garrels discussed her recent experience covering the war in Iraq with WBUR's Dick Gordon.

The Kennedy Library continued its examination of 20th century presidents with a look 40 years later at John F. Kennedy featuring historians Alan Brinkley, Arthur Schlesinger, Michael Kazin, Randall Kennedy and Lizabeth Cohen.

In a conversation with New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, Theodore Sorensen, Special Counsel to the President, reflected on his years of service to President Kennedy and on JFK's vision for our nation and its role in the world. 

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ABC Senior News correspondent Martha Raddatz moderated this far-ranging conversation with Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez and Governor Jane Swift about their experiences in the national political arena. 

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Caroline Kennedy introduced a panel discussion with Jill Ker Conway, Louis Menand, Robert Pinsky, Daniel Schorr, and Roger Wilkins that explored the ideals upon which our country was founded and how they can best be fulfilled at home and abroad in today's world.  Former Harvard president, Derek Bok, moderated. 

In his films "Primary" and "New Frontier," Robert Drew revolutionized documentary filmmaking -- capturing the 1960 campaign and the first year of the Kennedy administration as never before.  After a screening of these films, film historian Thom Powers led a discussion of the films. 

Robert Drew's documentary Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment chronicles the confrontation between President Kennedy and Governor Wallace in Alabama.  Following the film, Nicholas Katzenbach and Vivian Malone Jones (one of the two African American students who registered discussed this historic event in a conversation moderated by Juan Williams, NPR's Senior Correspondent.

Mariane Pearl discussed her new book The Brave Life and Death of Danny Pearl and the changing role of international journalism in the wake of this tragedy with host of WBUR's Here and Now Robin Young.

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Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African American woman in space, and Dr. Harrison Schmitt, the pilot for Apollo 17, led a discussion of the United States' efforts in space exploration from the Kennedy years to the present.  Veteran news correspondent Morton Dean moderated.

John Shattuck, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and current CEO of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, discussed his new book Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and America's Response with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power.

Following a screening of The Fog of War, Frank Rich of the New York Times will moderated a discussion between the filmmaker, Errol Morris, and the subject of his documentary, Robert McNamara.

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Boston Globe columnist James Carroll moderated a conversation with syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman about her new book Paper Trial: Common Sense in Uncommon Times. 

NPR Senior Correspondent Juan Williams moderated a conversation with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sean Hemingway, who edited a collection of his grandfather's writings titled Hemingway on War, shared his insights with Paul Fussell, author of The Great War and Modern Memory, and James Webb, Jr., author of the best selling Vietnam War novel Fields of Fire.  Harvard University's Susan Suleiman moderated.

On the eve of a new season, ABC's "Good Morning America" host Charles Gibson moderated a conversation about baseball's enduring hold on our national imagination with The New Yorker's Roger Angell, Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino, NESN Red Sox analyst Jerry Remy, and Boston Globe writer Dan Shaughnessy.

New York Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman discussed his book The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century with WBUR's Tom Ashbrook.

Russell Banks delivered the keynote address at the PEN Hemingway Awards ceremony hosted annually by the Kennedy Library.  Mr. Banks has won numerous awards and prizes for his work.  Continental Drift and Cloudsplitter were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and 1998 respectively. Affliction was short listed for both the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Prize and the Irish International Prize.  The Kennedy Library is the major repository of Ernest Hemingway's works.

Senator Sam Nunn discussed the threat of nuclear proliferation with Graham Allison of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.