CURRENT LISTENINGS »

For those who didn't get to listen to all of the clips from our meeting on October 2, we'll keep them online in the multimedia section. There were no new listenings for our October 9 meeting.

Some of these meetings include very specific discussions, but our objective is not that you all become instant experts on the minute details of what they are talking about - although you should all have some general background from previous readings and from our last class. Apart from the actual content of the meetings, there are some things we would like you to think about carefully as you listen. We'll be talking more about these issues in class:

• Begin to familiarize yourself with the sound of the tapes and the different voices.
• Listen to the dynamics of the discussions. Who gives President Kennedy advice and how do they do it? Brief biographical information about some of the leading participants is available here.
• Listen to what President Kennedy responds to. What types of questions does he ask? Does he play an active or passive role? At what points does he seem most interested?
• What interests does each participant represent and what is their agenda?
• What decision or policy is being made?
• How would this discussion likely be recorded in other types of sources (if it is mentioned at all in other sources)? An official government memoranda of the conversation, for example, or perhaps in someone's memoirs.