William M. LeoGrande is Professor of Government and Dean Emeritus of the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. He has written widely on Latin America and U.S.-Latin American relations. He is the author of Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992 (University of North Carolina Press, 1998), and co-author of Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana (University of North Carolina Press, 2014). He is also co-editor of A Contemporary Cuba Reader: The Revolution Under Raúl Castro, among other books. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, The Nation, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, LeMonde Diplomatique and other journals and newspapers.