Marc J. Selverstone in his new book The Kennedy Withdrawal, offers an inside look at presidential decisionmaking in this limited period of the Vietnam War and makes clear that portrayals of Kennedy as a dove are overdrawn. Through the use of the presidential tapes, alongside declassified documents, memoirs, and oral histories, he lifts the veil on this legend of Camelot. He argues that Kennedy’s withdrawal was in fact a cagey strategy for keeping the United States involved in the fight— a strategy the country adopted decades later in Afghanistan.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant weaknesses in U.S. global health security policy and infrastructure, leading to crises on several fronts. The Miller Center’s new Health Care Policy Project joins Stephen Morrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)—also the Miller Center’s James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor—along with Tom Inglesby and Anne Zink for a timely and important conversation about what lies ahead for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In January 2023, the CSIS’s Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security released a compelling report, Building the CDC the Country Needs, which examines why the CDC is essential to protecting the health of Americans and highlights the peril the agency currently faces. Three years into the pandemic, what is the way forward to improve the CDC’s performance and restore the trust and confidence of the American people?

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant weaknesses in U.S. global health security policy and infrastructure, leading to crises on several fronts. The Miller Center’s new Health Care Policy Project joins Stephen Morrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)—also the Miller Center’s James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor—along with Tom Inglesby and Anne Zink for a timely and important conversation about what lies ahead for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In January 2023, the CSIS’s Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security released a compelling report, Building the CDC the Country Needs, which examines why the CDC is essential to protecting the health of Americans and highlights the peril the agency currently faces. Three years into the pandemic, what is the way forward to improve the CDC’s performance and restore the trust and confidence of the American people?

Unlike Afghanistan, which fell before all U.S. troops could be withdrawn, the South Vietnamese government remained in power for more than two years after the Jan. 27, 1973, peace accord, heralded by President Richard Nixon as “an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.” But Ken Hughes, an American presidential historian with the UVA Miller Center, believes the effort was less about “peace and honor” and more about reelection. The author of “Chasing Shadows” and “Fatal Politics,” Hughes has deeply researched the Nixon White House’s tape recordings. He said conversations show Nixon and then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were more concerned with reelection than the future of its ally when negotiating the agreement signed 50 years ago.

Eliot and Eric welcome Constanze Stelzenmuller, the Director of the Center on the United States and Europe and the Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and Transatlantic Relations at the Brookings Institution. They discuss the current row over Germany providing Leopard Tanks to Ukraine, the political constraints on German Chancellor Olof Scholz, the role of Cold War ostpolitik on contemporary policy debates, the intellectual impact of Carl Schmitt and Victor Klemperer on elite German thinking, and the Hitler-Putin comparison. They end with a discussion on the late Judith Shklar as a political philosopher and teacher of political theory and her writings on power and cruelty.

The Miller Center is “a nonpartisan affiliate of the University of Virginia that specializes in presidential scholarship, public policy, and political history, providing critical insights for the nation’s governance challenges,” as stated on its website. The Center’s Director & CEO is William J. Antholis, who spoke with The National Herald on an array of issues, focusing on the American presidency, but also on the state of contemporary politics and on Greece’s important legacy to the United States.