The Wise Men

The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made is a non-fiction book authored by Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas. Published by Simon & Schuster in 1986, it describes the actions of a group of U.S. federal government officials and members of the East Coast foreign policy establishment. Starting in the immediate post-World War II period, the group developed the containment policy of dealing with the Communist bloc during the Cold War. They also helped to craft institutions and initiatives such as NATO, the World Bank, and the Marshall Plan. An updated edition of the book was released in 2012. Supportive reviews appeared in publications such as Foreign Affairs and The Los Angeles Times. Members of the group The book identifies six people who were important foreign policy advisors to U.S. presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson and influential in the development of Cold War era foreign policy for America. The six are: Dean Acheson, Secretary of State under President Harry S Truman Charles E. Bohlen, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, the Philippines, and France W. Averell Harriman, Special Envoy for President Franklin Roosevelt George F. Kennan, ambassador to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, State Dept. Director of Policy Planning Robert A. Lovett, Truman's Secretary of Defense John J. McCloy, a War Department official and later U.S. High Commissioner for Germany. The group comprised two lawyers, two bankers, and two diplomats. Five of the six were from the so-called Georgetown Set. Acheson, Harriman, and Lovett had known each other since their days at prep school or college and on Wall Street. Bohlen, Kennan and McCloy were younger and did not know the others well until their public lives brought them into close contact.