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In this highly original and intriguing work, the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Rhetoric at Pennsylvania State University examines in insightful detail the two speeches and the press conference held by President John F. Kennedy in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961. The full texts of all three are included, to which is added the author’s analysis of a prime example of what has come to be known today as “spin control.” In so doing, he casts light not only on Kennedy and his presidency but also on the “enormous power of the presidency to compel press restraint and to command the power of publicity.”