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Rating: 
Summary: The Old Boys
Review: The term 'Best and Brightest' is usually used, somewhat sarcastically, to refer to the policy makers in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, those initially involved with the Vietnam War. However, these policy makers, men like Clark Clifford and Robert McNamara, were merely following in the footsteps of a tradition established in the wake of World War II. This book traces the origin of what could be called the original 'Best and Brightest', those men who formulated American foreign policy during the beginning of the Cold War, and on into the Vietnam War. The Wise Men focuses in particular on six of these men: Averell Harriman, Dean Acheson, Robert Lovett, Charles Bohlen, John Jay McCloy, and George Kennan. While it is a biography of men, it skips through the early parts of their lives, for it is mostly a biography of the State Department during World War II and the Cold War, and the role these six men had in its birth and maturation. It is also a biography of the American Establishment, which all of these men, educated at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, came to typify. It is a great book, and worth while to any with an interest in America since World War II.
Rating:
Summary: The Old Boys
Review: The term `Best and Brightest' is usually used, somewhat sarcastically, to refer to the policy makers in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, those initially involved with the Vietnam War. However, these policy makers, men like Clark Clifford and Robert McNamara, were merely following in the footsteps of a tradition established in the wake of World War II. This book traces the origin of what could be called the original `Best and Brightest', those men who formulated American foreign policy during the beginning of the Cold War, and on into the Vietnam War. The Wise Men focuses in particular on six of these men: Averell Harriman, Dean Acheson, Robert Lovett, Charles Bohlen, John Jay McCloy, and George Kennan. While it is a biography of men, it skips through the early parts of their lives, for it is mostly a biography of the State Department during World War II and the Cold War, and the role these six men had in its birth and maturation. It is also a biography of the American Establishment, which all of these men, educated at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, came to typify. It is a great book, and worth while to any with an interest in America since World War II.
Rating:
Summary: Exhaustive (exhausting), and fascinating
Review: This book is fantastically interesting. The detail and the descriptions of personalities involved make the subject matter more than palatable, even to the less scholarly among us. The book is, however, very, very long and would have perhaps been better broken up into several volumes. I would characterize it as very well written, exhaustively researched, slightly fawning and uncritical at times, and, in general, well worth lugging around.
Rating:
Summary: Great book about our biggest policy makers
Review: This is about six people that were some of the biggest policy makers in U.S. foreign policy from the 1930's through the 1970's. I read a book about one of the six, John McCloy, a few years ago. Besides McCloy, the book visits Averell Harriman, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, George Kenan, Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett, and Ambassador to the Soviet Union Charles Bohlen.
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