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This fascinating, behind-the-scenes history of postwar Washington is a rich and colorful portrait of the close-knit group of journalists, spies, and government officials who waged the Cold War over cocktails and dinner.
In the years after World War II, Georgetown's leafy streets were home to an unlikely group of cold warriors: a coterie of affluent, well-educated, and well-connected civilians who helped steer American strategy from the Marshall Plan through McCarthyism, Vietnam, and the endgame of Watergate. This Georgetown set included Phil and Kay Graham, husband-and-wife publishers of the Washington Post; Joe and Stewart Alsop, odd-couple brothers who were among the country's premier political pundits; Frank Wisner, a driven, manic-depressive lawyer in charge of CIA covert operations; and a host of diplomats, spies, and scholars. It was a time when presidents made foreign policy in consultation with reporters and professors-often over martinis and hors d'oeuvres-and columnists like the Alsops promoted those policies in the next day's newspapers.
Gregg Herken illuminates the drama of these years and brings this remarkable roster of men and women and their world not only out into the open but vividly to life.
In the years after World War II, Georgetown's leafy streets were home to an unlikely group of cold warriors: a coterie of affluent, well-educated, and well-connected civilians who helped steer American strategy from the Marshall Plan through McCarthyism, Vietnam, and the endgame of Watergate. This Georgetown set included Phil and Kay Graham, husband-and-wife publishers of the Washington Post; Joe and Stewart Alsop, odd-couple brothers who were among the country's premier political pundits; Frank Wisner, a driven, manic-depressive lawyer in charge of CIA covert operations; and a host of diplomats, spies, and scholars. It was a time when presidents made foreign policy in consultation with reporters and professors-often over martinis and hors d'oeuvres-and columnists like the Alsops promoted those policies in the next day's newspapers.
Gregg Herken illuminates the drama of these years and brings this remarkable roster of men and women and their world not only out into the open but vividly to life.
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Reviews
"Gregg Herken has diligently brought the old Eastern Establishment back to life in The Georgetown Set. A whole host of luminaries-Joseph Alsop, Dean Acheson, Paul Nitze, Phil and Kay Graham among them-make grand appearances in this group biography. Herken has connected the dots between these so-called 'Wise Men of the twentieth century' better than anybody else. An absolutely wonderful read!"
Douglas Brinkley New York Times bestselling author
"An absolutely fascinating look into a world that has long remained half hidden but was at the center of America's postwar global supremacy. This book was waiting to be written, and Gregg Herken delivers with insight and panache."
Evan Thomas author of Ike's Bluff
"Cold War America was largely shaped by a close-knit group of individuals known as the 'WASP ascendancy': well-off, well-educated journalists, politicians, and socialites who lived in Washington, DC's Georgetown neighborhood…Herken covers, among a host of post-WWII milestones, the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, the founding of the CIA, McCarthyism, the Korean War, Vietnam, and Watergate. The
Publishers Weekly (starred review)