Book Cover
E-book
Author Bill, James A

Title George Ball : behind the scenes in U.S. foreign policy / James A. Bill
Published New Haven : Yale University Press, ©1997

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Description 1 online resource (xvii, 274 pages) : illustrations
Summary Annotation Diplomat and "wise man" George Ball wielded enormous influence in American foreign policy for more than forty years. Best known for his dissent from U.S. Vietnam policy when he was under secretary of state during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, he also helped those administrations formulate policy concerning the European Community, the Congo, the Cuban missile crisis, and Cyprus. His last formal appointment was in 1968 as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, but he continued to advise and unofficially assist presidents and members of the American political elite for another twenty-five years, often taking contrary and critical positions on the major issues of the day. In this book James Bill offers fascinating new insights into the inner workings of foreign policy by examining Ball's career and the political problems with which he grappled. Drawing on Ball's personal archive as well as extensive interviews with Ball and with dozens of his associates, Bill traces Ball's involvement withforeign policy. He begins in the 1940s, when Ball was a close associate of Jean Monnet, chief architect of the European Community, and ends with Ball's death in 1994. He also chronicles Ball's forty-year involvement as a founding member of the Bilderberg group, an international clique of powerful European and American leaders. The book stresses a seldom-recognized dimension of the U.S. foreign policymaking process: the importance of the second tier of officialdom, the level just below that of cabinet secretary. And it provides a thoughtful comparison of the realpolitik model of statesmanship practiced by Henry Kissinger and the phronesis practiced by Ball, who was a prudent statesman guided bypractical wisdom within a moral framework
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-263) and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject Ball, George W
SUBJECT Ball, George W. fast
Subject United Nations -- Biography
United States. Department of State -- Biography
SUBJECT United Nations fast
United States. Department of State fast
Subject Statesmen -- United States -- Biography
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Historical.
HISTORY.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Political.
Diplomatic relations
Statesmen
Regions & Countries - Americas.
History & Archaeology.
United States - General.
SUBJECT United States -- Foreign relations -- 1945-1989. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85140098
Subject United States
Genre/Form Biographies
Form Electronic book
LC no. 96033991
ISBN 0585356254
9780585356259
9780300143393
0300143397
9780300076462
0300076460
9780300069693
0300069693