The Color of Truth

Book excerpt: From the Pulitzer Prize–winning coauthor of American Prometheus—this biography of the Bundy Brothers inspired the Academy Award–winning film Oppenheimer. In this definitive biography of McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy, two of "the best and the brightest" who advised presidents about peace and war during the most dangerous years of the Cold War, Kai Bird pens a portrait of the fiercely patriotic, brilliant, and brazenly self-confident men who directed a steady escalation of a war they did not believe could be won. Drawing 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, The Color of Truth tells the tale of the anti-communist liberals who, despite their grave doubts about sending Americans to fight in Southeast Asia, became key architects of America's war in Vietnam. Like the bestselling The Wise Men, this dual biography is both an inside account of the making of US foreign policy in an era of nuclear weapons and a stunning group portrait of the heirs of the Wise Men—including Robert McNamara, George Ball, and Robert Kennedy—and the presidents they served.