This study was required reading for all foreign policy students at SAIS when I attended there in the mid-seventies. I found the book fascinating then before I joined the Sate Department. That the book is still considered a classic is a testimony to Mort Halperin’s wise observations. After almost 50 years at State, I should reread it and learn from Halperin what I should now know to be true. The political appointees who come and go from State and other agencies should also read his book to learn that they are but fellow swimmers with the bureaucracy in the great river that is foreign policy.
