How Presidential Decisions Shape History & Foreign Policy | Arts & Culture

This is a news release from Westminster College.

Westminster College and the Utah Council for Citizen Diplomacy present a lecture by Frederick Kempe on “From Kennedy to Obama: How Presidential Decisions Shape History and Foreign Policy” on Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012, at 7 p.m. in the Vieve Gore Concert Hall in the Emma Eccles Jones Conservatory.

In his national bestselling book—Berlin 1961: Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth—author Frederick Kempe calls Kennedy’s record during 1961 one of the worst inaugural year foreign policy performances of any modern presidency. He tracks Kennedy’s actions through his inauguration in January, the Bay of Pigs debacle in April, the Vienna Summit in June, and the construction of the Berlin Wall in August to a showdown of tanks at Checkpoint Charlie in October. The result, he argues, was a brush with nuclear war in 1961 and again during the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later. Yet Kempe’s book has powerful lessons for today, when another young and relatively inexperienced president wrestles with the enormous foreign policy challenges of the Arab Awakening and its aftermath.

Selected as one of the European Voice’s 50 most influential Europeans—although he is American—Kempe is an award-winning, 25-year veteran with the Wall Street Journal and currently serves as president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, one of Washington’s premier think tanks.

The lecture is part of the 2011-2012 Weldon J. Taylor Executive Lecture Series, presented in partnership with the Utah Council for Citizen Diplomacy’s Ambassador John Price and Marcia Price World Affairs Lecture Series, American Express, and Wells Fargo All lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.westminstercollege.edu/culturalevents or www.utahdiplomacy.org.

WHO:            
Frederick Kempe, President & Chief Executive Officer, Atlantic Council

WHAT:           
Lecture on “From Kennedy to Obama: How Presidential Decisions Shape History and Foreign Policy”

WHERE:       
Westminster College
Vieve Gore Concert Hall, Emma Eccles Jones Conservatory
1840 South 1300 East Salt Lake City, UT

WHEN:           
Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012
7 p.m.