Status Updates From The Georgetown Set: Friends...

“The debate over the war in Vietnam was a reflection of differences not only of outlook but of age. The coming to maturity of children born after World War II—the baby boomers—had transformed the country, including, not least of all, staid and traditional Georgetown.”

“In that brave new world, Wisner represented the CIA’s past. Bussell was its future.”

“But Phil Graham’s sympathy for the poor and downtrodden was actually rooted in a larger concern—namely, that it would be impossible for America to win the Cold War if the country were seen as indifferent to the plight of its minorities.”

“While Joe and Stewart would continue to warn against McCarthyism, the Wisconsin senator’s moment in history had indeed passed. The Alsops deserved some credit for the outcome, having been among the first to take on McCarthy, well before Ed Murrow. When McCarthy died on May 2, 1957, the two brothers silently and guiltily, raised champagne glasses in a toast.”

“In the paranoid atmosphere created by Joe McCarthy, even Washington’s spies feared being spied upon.”

“Already accustomed to the rules of the covert world, Kennan had written the memo authorizing Umpire on plain paper rather than official State Department stationery so that Lovett and his boss, Marshall, would have the sine qua non of every Cold War bureaucracy: plausible deniability.”

In the highlight of the evening, Phil delivered a champagne-fueled toast to the place where most of them lived. “Georgetown was an entity to itself,” he began, “home to the great, the near great and the once great in government and in journalism. . . “

“This is a book about extraordinary—and extraordinarily colorful—collection of individuals, living at a remarkable time, in a city aptly described as ‘the capital of the Cold War.’”

Kennedy ended with the grim prediction that he had made in response to one of Khrushchev’s threats as the summit concluded: “It’s going to be a cold winter.”