Top Highlights

• McCloy illustrated how those who administer a policy often have more impact than those who conceive it.
• Harriman, Lovett, Acheson, McCloy, Kennan, Bohlen:
• They shared a vision of public service as a lofty calling and an aversion to the pressures of partisan politics. They had a pragmatic and businesslike preference for realpolitik over ideology.
• These men helped establish a distinguished network connecting Wall Street, Washington, worthy foundations, and proper clubs. “The New York financial and legal community,” former JFK aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., wrote in 1965, “was the heart of the American Establishment. Its household deities were Henry L. Stimson and Elihu Root; its present leade...
• the division between populists and the Establishment has been a more fundamental one in U.S. politics than that between left and right, liberal and conservative.