The Trial Balloon.
Walter Lippmann, a widely read columnist for the New York Herald-Tribune and an accepted expert on many subjects, wrote this column below on October 25, 1962. It came out amid the Cuban Missile Crisis. It is likely that President Kennedy or an intermediary conveyed much of these ideas to Lippmann so he could float them in his column as a trial balloon. Tensions and risks were high, time was limited, and if the President’s proposal tanked, it might hamper his ability to handle the crisis from there forward. Read the column and answer the questions that follow.
Questions:
1. What lessons did he draw from to offer solutions to the Cuban conflict?
2. What imagery or symbolism did he use to illustrate point(s).
3. What diplomatic plan did he suggest?
4. Where did he get the idea for this plan?
Photo/Image: Journalist, editor, and public thinker Walter Lippmann.