Washington Plans an Aggressive War

Marcus Goodman Raskin was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on April 30, 1934. He studied politics at the University of Chicago and later graduated from the university's law school. After law school, he worked on the staff of Representative Robert W. Kastenmeier in Washington. Raskin was part of a group that wrote The Liberal Papers, a book of essays that examined the future of liberal politics. He joined the staff of McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy's national security adviser, in 1961. He was moved to the Bureau of the Budget in 1962.

In 1963, Raskin and Richard J. Barnet started the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank that became a source of research about nuclear disarmament, the Vietnam War, economic inequality, civil rights, and national security. Raskin stepped down as director of the institute in 1978, but continued to write, fund-raise, and formulate ideas for social action. He co-wrote several books including Washington Plans an Aggressive War: A Documented Account of the United States Adventure in Indochina written with Richard J. Barnet and Ralph Stavins and The Four Freedoms Under Siege written with Robert Spero. He died from heart failure on December 24, 2017 at the age of 83.

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