Jane Smiley sets much of her epic trilogy in Iowa. She tells Richard Fitzpatrick that how people farm and eat is at the heart of her story.

THERE is an apocryphal tale of a verbal joust between Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and US president John F Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis of October, 1962.

The absence of a question about the Berlin blockade was something that may have upset many Junior Certificate students who took yesterday afternoon’s higher level paper.

Nuclear weapons continue to underpin the international security policy of the most powerful states

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of JFK, began her role on November 18 as US Ambassador to Japan. Kennedy starts her high profile job just days before the 50th anniversary of the assassination of her father.

Marilyn Monroe, who notoriously had an affair with John F Kennedy, apparently believed she was going to marry the president, even phoning the White House to tell his wife.

Richard Fitzpatrick ponders the link between abnormal psychology and political power — and finds that many of those who have achieved high office were not, in fact, as stable as we think.

A 50-year-old man is looking forward to the “best present ever” when he enjoys Christmas Day with his father for the first time.

Hundreds of thousands of Irish people will be anxiously watching their TV sets in a couple of hours time, when Europe's analogue TV signal is turned off.

Monday marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis. Ryle Dwyer examines a tense fortnight when the world was on the brink of nuclear war

THE nights are drawing in on us, you’ll notice, ahead of another winter, like the cinema lights dimming before a movie.

SECRET interviews with President John F Kennedy’s wife claim he ominously warned his assassination would protect his legacy about a year before his death.

Secret interviews with President John F Kennedy’s wife claim he ominously warned his assassination would protect his legacy about a year before his death.

In the light of current difficulties in Afghanistan, it is ironic that the country was very much in the news in 1980, because forces from the Soviet Union were occupying the country.

When Jean came in to my office in Iveagh House she was taken aback and moved to see my photo of her brothers. On leaving Ireland after her term as ambassador she kindly gave me a gift of one of her own photos of the three brothers at home.

I HOPE you get a good night’s sleep tonight. I have an awful feeling this is going to be a bad day, and that not a lot of good will come of it.

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has compared the US proposal to build a missile defence shield in eastern Europe to the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960s.

EVERY undertaker knows about keeping a respectful distance between burial and billing. The same code does not apply, however, to every profession.

The USS Oriskany sank to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico today after the Navy set off explosions on the retired aircraft carrier to make the world’s largest intentionally created reef.

THE ongoing confrontation between the international community and Iran has accurately been compared with the Cuban Missile Crisis - the world is waiting for someone to blink.

FROM engaging in sexual relations with an intern to letting the Vietnam War escalate, US presidents have been blamed for some egregious errors.

AMERICANS don’t even have to glance at a calendar to make an educated guess at what date it is.

IT was exactly 12.30pm when the shots rang out and John F Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States of America, slumped forward in the open-top limousine carrying him through the streets of Dallas.

THE origin of what historian Arthur Schlesinger called the Imperial Presidency now expanding the American empire under George W Bush can be traced back to the 1960s and Vietnam, but might never have emerged if JFK had survived Dallas.

US President George W Bush has pulled out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty, which banned the US and Russia from testing inter-continental weapons of mass destruction.