A liberal historian who became an insider chronicler of power
After the Bay of Pigs, he recalled, “I bitterly reproached myself” for not speaking more forcefully in the decisive meetings.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. was a historian and public intellectual who examined American liberalism and presidential power. As a special assistant in John F. Kennedy’s administration, he worked on Latin America and speechwriting, opposed the Bay of Pigs plan, and later acknowledged his own silence in decisive meetings. He was not a member of the Executive Committee during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but helped Adlai Stevenson prepare the U.S. presentation to the United Nations. His 1965 A Thousand Days fixed a polished story of Kennedy’s crisis leadership in public memory, while later scholars recovered the Cuban and Soviet agency, secret bargains, and structural dangers that narrative left in shadow.
Career Timeline
- 1938A.B., summa cum laude, Harvard University
- 1939–1942Fellow, Harvard University Society of Fellows
- 1943–1945Analyst, Office of Strategic Services
- 1946–1962Professor of History, Harvard University
- 1961–1964Special Assistant to President Kennedy
- 1966–1994Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities, CUNY Graduate Center
- 1965Published A Thousand Days, awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1966