Cuba analyst joins State Department

[flamingdem]

This happened today. Interesting and deserves some research. They certainly needed a "Cuba expert"!

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/2010/08/cuba-analyst-joins-state-department.html#more


The U.S. State Department has added a top Cuba analyst to its (dpe) Western Hemisphere Affairs (WHA) staff, and appointed a career diplomat as the new head of its Cuban affairs section.
Daniel P. Erikson, a senior associate with the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington and author of a book on Cuba-U.S. relations, is now a senior adviser at WHA, headed by Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela.
His duties are still being defined, U.S. government officials said, but he's likely to play at least some role in carrying out the diplomatic side of the Obama administration's policies on Cuba.

His arrival at WHA comes at a time when career diplomat Peter Brennan is scheduled to take over as director of Cuban affairs, officially known as Counselor for Cuban Affairs, on Monday.
(brn2) Brennan last served as Chargé d'Affaires and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica, and previously served in Nicaragua, Uruguay, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Barbados.

A graduate of Georgetown University, he entered the Foreign Service in 1984 and has pursued graduate studies at Georgetown and George Washington universities.
He will replace Ricardo Zúñiga, who has been acting head of Cuban affairs since the previous head, Bisa Williams, was named ambassador to Niger. Zúñiga had been assigned to the U.S. embassy in Brazil.
The Cuba section reports to Julissa Reynoso, a political appointee serving as deputy assistant secretary for Central American and Caribbean Affairs.
For more details on the appointments, click here.
–JUAN O. TAMAYO.
Daniel P. Erikson is the senior associate for U.S. policy and director of Caribbean programs at the Inter-American Dialogue. Erikson has published more than 60 articles in publications including The Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, and The Washington Post, and his book chapters appear in The Obama Administration and the Americas: Agenda for Change (2009), The Diplomacies of Small States (2009), Latin America’s Struggle for Democracy (2008), Looking Forward: Comparative Perspectives on Cuba’s Transition (2007), Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Latin America (2007), and Transforming Socialist Economies: Lessons for Cuba and Beyond (2005), which he co-edited. Erikson has taught Latin American politics at Johns Hopkins-SAIS, is frequently interviewed in U.S. and international media, and has testified before the U.S. Congress. His past positions include research associate at Harvard Business School and Fulbright scholar in U.S.-Mexican business relations. He earned a Masters in Public Policy as a Dean’s Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a BA from Brown University. Erikson is the author of The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States and the Next Revolution (Bloomsbury Press, 2008). He is a native of Maine.


Read more: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/2010/08/cuba-analyst-joins-state-department.html#more#ixzz0wQrp0o8c

[flamingdem]

1. Sounds like he's a moderate - review from Amazon

The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States, and the Next Revolution

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Uniquely Insightful and Compelling, November 19, 2008
By Moon Starkey (USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States, and the Next Revolution (Hardcover)
This great book is refreshing and rare in a number of ways. Unlike so many commentators on the subject of Cuba and Cuba-U.S relations, Erikson not only avoids the traps many others have fallen prey to--blindly supporting the obviously and absurdly unsuccessful U.S. embargo or fawning over a dictator who hardly deserves praise--he soberly uncovers the failings and occasional achievements on both sides of the Florida Straits. Erikson accomplishes this in a way that proves to be immensely compelling: through interviews with key actors--many of them not only very informative but also surprisingly entertaining--on virtually all sides of the issues. Many of those interviewed by Erikson--whether U.S. or Venezuelan generals or Cuban dissidents in Cuba--were shockingly upfront and unguarded with him. Nonfiction is rarely this much fun. You might even laugh out loud on occasion. Indeed, even readers without a strong interest in Cuba may have difficulty putting this book down once commenced. That said, this is an important and serious book that students of U.S. foreign policy and Cuba cannot afford to miss. It should be required reading for the incoming administration in Washington and perhaps even more so for the outgoing administration. Beyond that Erikson is clearly a writer of great talent and one can only hope we see more from him in the years to come.