About The Event

On November 25th, 2016, Fidel Castro died at the age of 90. His death comes at an important stage in normalization efforts between Cuba and the U.S. Using his presidential authorities, President Obama has put a lot of effort into improving diplomatic and commercial relations with Cuba. The world now awaits the new administration, wondering which changes, if any, will take place.

How will Trump approach the normalization process? Will the President-elect fulfill his campaign promise to reverse Obama’s executive orders to improve relations unless Cuba meets the demands?

Peter Kornbluh, Senior Analyst, has worked at the National Security Archive since April 1986, and he currently directs the Archive’s Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects. From 1990-1999, he taught at Columbia University as an adjunct assistant professor of international and public affairs.

His most recent book is Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana (UNC Press, 2014). He is the author/editor/co-editor of a number of Archive books, including The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 (The New Press), The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History (The New Press), and Bay of Pigs Declassified: The Secret CIA Report on the Invasion of Cuba (The New Press). On the 30th anniversary of the Chilean military coup in September 2003, he published The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, which the Los Angeles Times selected as a “best book” of the year. The Pinochet File has been translated into Spanish and published in Barcelona as Pinochet: Los Archivos Secretos.

His articles have been published in Foreign Policy, The New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and many other journals and newspapers. He has appeared on national television and radio broadcasts, among them, “60 Minutes,” “The Charlie Rose show,” “Nightline,” CNN, All Things Considered, and “FreshAir” with Terri Gross. He has also worked on, and appeared in, numerous documentary films, including the Oscar winning “Panama Deception,” the History Channel’s “Bay of Pigs Declassified,” and “The Trials of Henry Kissinger.

Kornbluh’s book Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana (UNC Press, 2014) will be available for purchase at the event.