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The Color of Truth

The Color of Truth
The Color of Truth
McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms  
By Kai Bird
This edition: Trade Paperback, 496 pages
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Description

"Grey is the color of truth."

So observed Mac Bundy in defending America's intervention in Vietnam. Kai Bird brilliantly captures this ambiguity in his revelatory look at Bundy and his brother William, two of the most influential policymakers of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. It is a portrait of fiercely patriotic, brilliant and brazenly self-confident men who directed a steady escalation of a war they did not believe could be won. Bird draws on seven years of research, nearly one hundred interviews, and scores of still-classified top secret documents in a masterful reevaluation of America's actions throughout the Cold War and Vietnam.

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Table of Contents
Charles Maechling, Jr. The Boston Globe A fascinating account of how...two archetypes of "the best and the brightest" helped to shape the policies that led to the debacle of Vietnam.
Bruce Nussbaum Business Week Compelling....Along with Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest and The Wise Men by Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, Kai Bird's The Color of Truth forms a trilogy that shows that America, in times of difficulty, finds "wise" men to lead it. But they often lack the courage of their convictions to do so properly.
Ronald Steel The Washington Post A darkly dramatic story, told with sensitivity and political passion, of pride, power, privilege, hubris and idealism
-- not only of the Bundys but of the nation they served.
Townsend Hoopes Los Angeles Times Keenly perceptive, thoroughly researched, fair and balanced...Bird's detailed account of [the Bundys'] major roles in the Vietnam imbroglio adds significantly to the historical record.
James G. Blight The Washington Post Balanced, highly original....Bird depicts [the Bundy brothers] with nuance and sympathy.
Foreign Affairs The [Vietnam) chapters are first-rate....Bird powerfully shows how the brothers struggled to craft a "vital center" but built one that could not hold.
Mark Danner The New York Times Book Review Bird's sources are well marshaled, and they make for good, sometimes fascinating reading.
Jeff Jones Boston Review Weaving a rich history of government documents-some recently declassified, some still classified
-- with interviews and a fresh look at available sources, Bird delivers the definitive assessment of two Cold Warriors.
Charles Wright Biography Magazine Bird's dual biography offers a vivid, dramatic chronicle Of the genesis, the conduct, and the aftermath of the long, undeclared war in Southeast Asia.
Richard Poster Milwaukee Journal Sentinel An exhaustively researched, elegantly written, scrupulously fair-minded and intellectually tough-minded biography...A masterful achievement.
Thomas Powersauthor of The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIAFor nearly thirty years, few men had greater power over American foreign policy than Harvey Bundy, right-hand man for Secretary of War Henry Stimson throughout the Second World War, and Bundy's two brilliant sons, William and McGeorge. It's the latter we remember best now-for pushing the United States into war in Vietnam, for their arrogant dismissal of skeptics when things went tragically wrong, for their silence after the war's bitter end. The Color of Truth explains how the Bundys, for good and ill alike, helped to fashion the American century after their own image.
Stanley Karnowauthor of Vietnam: A HistoryThe Bundy brothers seldom made headlines, but they were key figures in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Kai Bird's highly readable account of the roles they both played contains fresh and fascinating details on the formulation and conduct of American foreign policy during the Cold War.
Robert Dallekauthor of Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973Kai Bird's study of the Bundys will join a short list of essential reading on the history of the Cold War. He compels us to rethink the major foreign policy events of the fifties and sixties. No one interested in recent U.S. history can afford to ignore this important book.
Stanley HoffmannUniversity Professor, Harvard UniversityA remarkably well-researched and comprehensive biography that shows all the complexities of two formidably able Cold War liberals who were not ideologues but who, in Vietnam, and despite their hesitations, made some fatefully bad decisions.
Richard Barnetauthor of Global DreamsKai Bird has written a brilliant and absorbing book. Using recently declassified sources, he combines an insightful, fair and generous study of the Bundys' lives with a perceptive look at the institutions in which they labored.
Douglas BrinkleyDirector, Eisenhower Center, University of New OrleansKai Bird's The Color of Truth is a gripping, fair-minded dual biography of the Bundy brothers that sheds dramatic new light on U.S. policymaking during the Cold War. If you want to understand what went wrong in Vietnam, this is the book to read. A towering achievement.
H. W. Brandsauthor of TR.: The Last RomanticAnyone who wants to understand America's role in Vietnam needs to know the Bundy brothers. Kai Bird lets readers know them as never before. An indispensable addition to the literature on modern American foreign policy.
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