| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.2

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 148 words from this article are provided below; about 359 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 91.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Averting 'The Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings. By Sheldon M. Stern. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. xxxii, 459 pp. $35.00,ISBN 0-8047-4846-2.)

The disclosure of the Nixon White House taping system in 1973 sparked public scrutiny of whether other presidents secretly recorded their conversations. We now know that every president from Franklin D. Roosevelt through Richard M. Nixon did so, though the most extensive recording took place in the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. John F. Kennedy secretly taped many meetings during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, thus providing a unique window into perhaps the most heated event of the Cold War. Sheldon M. Stern's skillful analysis of these Kennedy tapes provides a welcome addition to the voluminous literature on the crisis, showing that evaluations of Kennedy's leadership, crisis resolution, and Cold War policies are far from complete.

. . .

There are about 359 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.