Report to JFK: The Skybolt Crisis in Perspective
Richard E. Neustadt
In March 1963, President Kennedy asked Richard E. Neustadt to investigate a troubling episode in U.S.-British relations. His confidential report—intended for a single reader, JFK himself, and classified for thirty years—is reproduced in its entirety here.
The Anglo-American crisis arose out of a massive misunderstanding between the two governments. The British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, had been operating on the assumption that Washington would proceed with, and sell for British use, an airborne missile system named Skybolt. In its defense planning, the United Kingdom relied on Skybolt to sustain its nuclear deterrent. The Americans, however, decided to cancel the program. This decision rocked the British government and seriously strained Anglo-American relations.
Upon reading Neustadt's report, Kennedy passed it to his wife, Jacqueline, remarking, "If you want to know what my life is like, read this." She had it with her in Texas five days later, when he was killed. Today the document remains fascinating for the insight it provides into American-style foreign policymaking. This volume adds to the report Kennedy's comments, a glossary, a cast of characters, and new information gleaned from recently declassified British files.
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About Richard E. Neustadt
Reviews for Report to JFK: The Skybolt Crisis in Perspective
Alan P. Dobson, University of Dundee
The International History Review
Neustadt has written a fascinating book for students of the presidency, national security, and bureaucratic politics.
Choice
Neustadt's report will remain a vital primary source for students of the Anglo-American 'special relationship' in nuclear weapons and a superb case study of decision making from top to bottom.... Students of statecraft will forever remain in Professor Neustadt's debt.
Myron A. Greenberg
Naval War College Review
Neustadt's scholarship is well known, and this book will only enhance his already exceptional reputation among serious students of the presidency. But this work goes beyond and takes pains to clarify characters and events for the more casual student of history and international politics.
Jay Avella, Capella University
Rhetoric and Public Affairs
Now declassified, Report to JFK offers a marvelous introduction to the personalities and the arcane issues involved, supplemented by Neustadt's new research in the now-opened British archives. His report is both a microstudy of the details that animate real issues in government and a masterpiece of writing.... It also offers a very timely lesson.
Philip Zelikow
Foreign Affairs
Report to JFK is a unique and brilliant study of decision-making in Washington and London. Now available more than a third of a century after it was written, it deserves to become a classic.
The Economist