The Last Gentleman: Thomas Hughes and the End of the American Century

A behind-the-scenes account of American foreign policymaking in the late twentieth century
Tom Hughes, assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, made an ominous prediction in 1965. In a seminal but less well-known document of the Vietnam War, Hughes predicted that the Democratic Party and the national consensus underlying the nation's foreign policy would break apart if the war escalated.
Hughes drafted the memo for his friend and fellow Minnesotan for whom he had previously...