Bridge of Spies is a well-made film.  I just wish it had dispensed with a lot of the dramatic license, which I do not think was really necessary. It would also be nice to see these two men do something a little gutsy concerning American history, opines Jim DiEugenio.

by Avner Cohen and William Burr

At:  National Security Archive, George Washington University

by Alan Gomez and Gregory Korte

At:  USA Today

Jim DiEugenio praises economist Jeffrey Sachs for his criticism of Clinton's foreign policy views, and elucidates even further just how different a view of United States – Middle Eastern relations John Kennedy held, a difference which is highly revealing for the state of affairs we find ourselves in today.

A major achievement, its stark excavation of the evil [Allen Dulles] represented surpassing Kai Bird's biography of John McCloy, writes Jim DiEugenio.

A well wrought, smaller piece of chamber music, telling the story of how part of the Vietnam nightmare was constructed and the efforts of those who did what they could to try and correct it, writes Jim DiEugenio.

In light of the recent developments in our understanding of JFK's foreign policy vision, Jim DiEugenio writes: "In sum, this is not a bad book. And I think some of its faults can be explained by Shaw’s association with the Wall Street Journal and the Hoover Institute.  But in my opinion it could have been much better".

by Michelle Nichols

At: Huffington Post

At: Real Clear Politics

What could have been an important and sterling volume is seriously compromised with a lot of litter. Instead of being up there with Rakove and Muehlenbeck, it stands a couple of steps downward, with Thurston Clarke’s mixed bag of nuts, concludes Jim DiEugenio.