PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release 04.01.2015
World Affairs at the Library
U.S. Foreign Policy / U.S. – Cuba Relations
April 2015
Portsmouth Public Library
In conjunction with the World Affairs Council of New Hampshire, this spring the Portsmouth Public Library will be hosting several speakers on global issues. In April, we’re so pleased to welcome Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson and National Security Archive analyst Peter Kornbluh. We hope you’ll join us for a closer look at world affairs, and stay tuned for future lectures in this series!
U.S. Foreign Policy with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson
Thursday April 16 | 6:30 pm
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired United States Army Colonel and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, is a regular expert commentator on television news talk shows providing analysis and opinion. Wilkerson offers honest criticism of the foreign policy decisions of current and past administrations—particularly related to the planning and execution of the Iraq War and the global politics before and after. He has spoken on U.S. positions on militarism, torture, and race.
Before serving at the State Department, Wilkerson served 31 years in the U.S. Army. He is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at College of William & Mary and Professorial Lecturer on National Security Affairs at George Washington University Honors Program. He is currently working on a book about the first George W. Bush administration.
U.S. – Cuba Relations with Peter Kornbluh
Tuesday April 21 | 7 pm
As a Senior Analyst, Peter Kornbluh has worked at the National Security Archive since April 1986. He currently directs the Archive's Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects. He was co-director of the Iran-contra documentation project and director of the Archive's project on U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. From 1990-1999, he taught at Columbia University, as an adjunct assistant professor of international and public affairs.
His most recent book is Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana (UNC Press, 2014). He is the author/editor/co-editor of a number of Archive books: the Archive's first two documents readers: The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 and The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History, both published by the New Press, and Bay of Pigs
Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba (The New Press, 1998). On the 30th anniversary of the Chilean military coup in September 2003 he published The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, which the Los Angeles Times selected as a "best book" of the year. The Pinochet File has been translated into Spanish and published in Barcelona as Pinochet: Los Archivos Secretos. A smaller book on the United States and the overthrow of the government of Salvador Allende has been published in Chile under the title: Los EEUU y el Derrocamiento de Allende.
His articles have been published in Foreign Policy, The New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and many other journals and newspapers. He has appeared on national television and radio broadcasts, among them "60 Minutes," "The Charlie Rose show," "Nightline," CNN, All Things Considered, and "FreshAir" with Terri Gross. He has also worked on, and appeared in, numerous documentary films, including the Oscar winning "Panama Deception," the History Channel's "Bay of Pigs Declassified," and "The Trials of Henry Kissinger." In November 2003, he served as producing consultant on the Discovery Times documentary, "Kennedy and Castro: The Secret History," which was based on his article in Cigar Aficionado, "Kennedy and Castro: The Secret Quest for Accommodation." He is currently a weekly columnist for the Chilean newspaper, Diario Siete.
Contact: Steven K. Butzel, Library Director
skbutzel@cityofportsmouth.com | 603 766 1710
