• So what exactly is a back channel, and when is it appropriate?
  • “It essentially means creating a channel of communication with another government or with representatives of another government, that is discreet, that doesn’t go through the official channels of diplomatic cables, of using ambassadors and more formal methods of communicating,”  
  • “Presidents have often used it,”  , “when they want to keep their contacts and proposals secret from other parts of the bureaucracy in the United States that might not be supportive of the policy initiative, or simply from the issue of leaks — when you need just a small group of people to know what you’re doing in order to safeguard negotiations that are very delicate, but will have extensive rewards if they come to fruition.”
  • “Every president has used them in one form or another,” explains Kornbluh. “Nixon used them … for the opening to China. There were back channels with Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam War. Barack Obama famously used them to arrive at an agreement of engagement with Raul Castro’s government in Cuba. In fact, in the case of Cuba, just about every president since Eisenhower has used back-channel communications because of the delicacy and the political sensitivity of negotiating with the Cubans over the years.”
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