Dr. Jones will discuss the Kennedy administration’s setting up an executive action program in the CIA within the first two days of the new presidency in January 1961, which established a framework for removing troublesome state leaders–including Castro first on the hit list. Also to be discussed is the program’s implementation during the Bay of Pigs fiasco in which one of the hopes was to have Castro assassinated with the aid of the Mafia on the eve of the invasion.

Dr. Jones Research Interests include

•U.S. Foreign Relations from the 18th-Century to the Present. Dr. Jones Recent Publications include:

•Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations, a volume in the “Littlefield History of the Civil War” series (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010).

•Lincoln Prize, Honorable Mention (2010)

•The Bay of Pigs, a volume in the “Pivotal Moments in American History” series (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

•A Selection of:

•The Book-of-the-Month Club

•Crucible of Power: A History of American Foreign Relations since 1945 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009).

•Winner of the Phi Alpha Theta Book Award.

•Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize