The Georgetown Set

This fascinating,behind-the-scenes history of postwar Washington is a rich and colorful portraitof the close-knit group of journalists, spies, and government officials whowaged the Cold War over cocktails and dinner.

In the years after World War II, Georgetown’s leafy streetswere home to an unlikely group of cold warriors: a coterie of affluent,well-educated, and well-connected civilians who helped steer American strategyfrom the Marshall Plan through McCarthyism, Vietnam, and the endgame ofWatergate. This Georgetown set included Phil and Kay Graham, husband-and-wife publishersof the Washington Post; Joeand Stewart Alsop, odd-couple brothers who were among the country’s premierpolitical pundits; Frank Wisner, a driven, manic-depressive lawyer in charge ofCIA covert operations; and a host of diplomats, spies, and scholars. It was atime when presidents made foreign policy in consultation with reporters andprofessors—often over martinis and hors d’oeuvres—and columnists like theAlsops promoted those policies in the next day’s newspapers.

Gregg Herkenilluminates the drama of these years and brings this remarkable roster of menand women and their world not only out into the open but vividly to life.