Friday, January 9, 2015

Book Review: The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington, by Gregg Herken

       The Cold War.  Who remembers?  When was it?  What happened?  Why was it "cold"?  What is a "hot" war?  Author Gregg Herken is a professor emeritus of American diplomatic history at Univ. of California.  He is the author of four other histories of the period.  What period?
       Historians place the 'Cold War' as that period after WW II and it ended at the cessation of America's involvement in Vietnam in 1975.  While not all agree on the time frame, most will say that it ended with the end of the Soviet Union in 1989.
     Who was included in the Georgetown Set?  Where is Georgetown, really?  Georgetown is a very old neighborhood of Washington, DC, adjacent to the Potomac River as it bends its way to Chesapeake Bay.  It became a fashionable place to live among politicians, literati, academicians, and a few wealthy socialite families, and diplomats in the dept. of State.  The brick townhouses were situated on zero lot line plots with narrow fronts and can be seen today with little changes.  Maybe the prices would leave some of the old "set" breathless.
      The list of local residents is impressive:  the movers and shakers of a generation of power brokers, power seekers, and those enamored of that power.  For a good many years, and which may seem quaint, the high priest of Georgetown was a newspaper columnist: Joe Alsop.  He lived at 2720 Dumbarton.  This area is found north of the C & O Canal, north of the Potomac R., and west of Rock Creek Park. Also it was framed by M Street on the south and R Street on the north, to 34th St. on the west.
  The list of individuals, couples, and families included the following:
Dean Acheson                                             
  • Joe Alsop                                                   Felix Frankfurter
  • Stewart Alsop(the younger brother)          Phil Graham
  • Chip Bohlen                                               Averell Harriman
  • Ben Bradlee                                               Bob Joyce
  • David Bruce                                               John and Jackie Kennedy
  • Allen Dulles                                               Llewellyn Thompson
  • Desmond Fitzgerald                                   Frank Wisner
More later

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