The acclaimed portrait of McGeorge and William Bundy, two brothers who served as architects of American policy during the Cold War and Vietnam--"a darkly dramatic story, told with sensitivity and political passion, of pride, power, privilege, hubris, and idealism" (Ronald Steel, "The Washington Post"). of photos.

Contents

Introduction

1 Harvey Hollister Bundy: The Patriarch

2 Groton: A Very Expensive Education

3 Yale: The "Great Blue Mother"

4 The War Years, 1941-1945

5 Stimson's Scribe

6 Portrait of a Young Policy Intellectual, 1948-1953

7 Dean Bundy of Harvard, 1953-1960

8 William Bundy and the CIA, 1951-1960

9 The Kennedy Years

10 The Cuban Missile Crisis

11 Autumn Assassinations

12 LBJ and Vietnam, 1964

13 Vietnam: The Decision, 1965

14 Vietnam Quagmire, 1966-1969

15 The Ford Foundation

16 Vietnam Aftermath

Notes

Interviews

Select Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index

Kai Bird is the co-author with Martin J. Sherwin of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, American Prometheus:The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005), which also won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. His other books include The Chairman: John J. McCloy, the Making of the American Establishment (1992) and The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy & William Bundy, Brothers in Arms (1998). Bird's many honours include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, and the Rockefeller Foundation. A contributing editor of the Nation, he lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, with his wife and son.