One of those cases where the professionalism and thoroughness of the project carries it, despite the authors being dolts. Just howlers throughout, like when they misunderstand what "begging the question" means, or when they claim early on that our six subjects acted without any ideology before launching into a description of their shared beliefs!

As a group-biography, has the same faults as something like The Best and the Brightest or Team of Rivals where it's forced to be overlong so everyone's activities are included at all times—along with, in this case, skipping over large chunks of the Eisenhower era simply because these guys were out of power at the time. And unlike Halberstam, the writing is less evocative than competent, plus there are strange decisions like spending pages rehashing a subject's personality about 600 pages in.

The book definitely makes me want to read more about Kennan and Acheson, who seem to be the more interesting of the group. All six were central to the establishment because they were willing to serve and be used as tools of power, even if it meant bending the truth and convincing themselves of falsehoods. For example, Kennan's telegrams may have been more nuanced and sophisticated than their reputation, but he was also willing to go along when they were used to boost fears of communism and justify a giant national security apparatus. Even if he had some later doubts about his monster, he was still the Dr. Frankenstein of this story.