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McGeorge Bundy
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McGeorge Bundy
McGeorge "Mac" Bundy (March 30, 1919 – September 16, 1996) was an American academic who served as the U.S. National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 through 1966, mostly remembered as one of the chief architects of the United States' escalation of the Vietnam War. He was president of the Ford Foundation from 1966 through 1979.
After World War II, during which Bundy served as an intelligence officer, he was selected in 1949 to work for the Council on Foreign Relations. He worked with a study team on the implementation of the Marshall Plan. He was appointed a professor of government at Harvard University, and, in 1953, became its youngest dean for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, working to develop Harvard as a merit-based university. In 1979, he returned to academia as professor of history at New York University, and later as scholar in residence at the Carnegie Corporation.
Born in 1919 and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Bundy was the third son in a prosperous family, long involved in Republican politics. His older brothers were Harvey Hollister Bundy, Jr., and William Putnam Bundy, and his two younger sisters were Harriet Lowell and Katharine Lawrence. His father, Harvey Hollister Bundy, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, was a prominent attorney in Boston who'd clerked for Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in his younger days. Bundy's mother, Katherine Lawrence Putnam, was related to several Boston Brahmin families listed in the Social Register: the Lowells, the Cabots, and the Lawrences. She was a niece to Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell. Through his mother, Bundy grew up within other Boston Brahmin families, and remained throughout his life well connected with American elites.
The Bundys were close to Henry L. Stimson. As Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover, in 1931, Stimson appointed Bundy's father as his Assistant Secretary of State. Later, when Stimson was Secretary of War in World War II, Harvey Bundy served again under Stimson as Special Assistant on Atomic Matters, serving as liaison between Stimson and the director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Vannevar Bush. He worked in the implementation process of the Marshall Plan after the war. McGeorge Bundy grew up knowing Stimson as a family friend and colleague of his father.
He attended the private Dexter School in Brookline, Massachusetts, and the elite Groton School, where he placed 1st in his class and ran the student newspaper and debating society. Biographer David Halberstam writes:
He [McGeorge Bundy] attended Groton, the greatest "Prep" school in the nation, where the American upper class sends its sons to instill the classic values: discipline, honor, a belief in the existing values and the rightness of them. Coincidentally, it's at Groton that one starts to meet the right people, and where connections which will serve well later on – be it at Wall Street or Washington – are first forged; one learns, at Groton, above all, the rules of the Game and even a special language: what washes and does not wash.
He was admitted to Yale University, one year behind his brother William. When applying to Yale, Bundy wrote on the entrance exam: "This question is silly. If I were giving the test, this is the question I would ask, and this is my answer." He was still admitted to Yale as he achieved perfect score on his entrance exam. At Yale, he served as secretary of the Yale Political Union and then chairman of its Liberal Party. He was on the staff of the Yale Literary Magazine and also wrote a column for the Yale Daily News, while, as a senior, he was awarded the Alpheus Henry Snow Prize. Like his father, he was inducted into the Skull and Bones secret society, where he was nicknamed "Odin." He remained in contact with his fellow Bonesmen for decades afterward. He graduated from Yale with an A.B. in mathematics in 1940. The same year, he advocated for American intervention in World War Two, writing: "Though war is evil, it is occasionally the lesser of two evils." In 1941, he was awarded a three-year Junior Fellowship in the Harvard Society of Fellows. At the time, Fellows were not allowed to pursue advanced degrees, "a requirement intended to keep them off the standard academic treadmill"; thus, Bundy would never earn a doctorate.
In 1941, he ran for the Ward 5 Seat on the Boston City Council. He was endorsed by the outgoing incumbent, Henry Lee Shattuck, but lost to A. Frank Foster by 92 votes.
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McGeorge Bundy
McGeorge "Mac" Bundy (March 30, 1919 – September 16, 1996) was an American academic who served as the U.S. National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 through 1966, mostly remembered as one of the chief architects of the United States' escalation of the Vietnam War. He was president of the Ford Foundation from 1966 through 1979.
After World War II, during which Bundy served as an intelligence officer, he was selected in 1949 to work for the Council on Foreign Relations. He worked with a study team on the implementation of the Marshall Plan. He was appointed a professor of government at Harvard University, and, in 1953, became its youngest dean for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, working to develop Harvard as a merit-based university. In 1979, he returned to academia as professor of history at New York University, and later as scholar in residence at the Carnegie Corporation.
Born in 1919 and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Bundy was the third son in a prosperous family, long involved in Republican politics. His older brothers were Harvey Hollister Bundy, Jr., and William Putnam Bundy, and his two younger sisters were Harriet Lowell and Katharine Lawrence. His father, Harvey Hollister Bundy, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, was a prominent attorney in Boston who'd clerked for Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in his younger days. Bundy's mother, Katherine Lawrence Putnam, was related to several Boston Brahmin families listed in the Social Register: the Lowells, the Cabots, and the Lawrences. She was a niece to Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell. Through his mother, Bundy grew up within other Boston Brahmin families, and remained throughout his life well connected with American elites.
The Bundys were close to Henry L. Stimson. As Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover, in 1931, Stimson appointed Bundy's father as his Assistant Secretary of State. Later, when Stimson was Secretary of War in World War II, Harvey Bundy served again under Stimson as Special Assistant on Atomic Matters, serving as liaison between Stimson and the director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Vannevar Bush. He worked in the implementation process of the Marshall Plan after the war. McGeorge Bundy grew up knowing Stimson as a family friend and colleague of his father.
He attended the private Dexter School in Brookline, Massachusetts, and the elite Groton School, where he placed 1st in his class and ran the student newspaper and debating society. Biographer David Halberstam writes:
He [McGeorge Bundy] attended Groton, the greatest "Prep" school in the nation, where the American upper class sends its sons to instill the classic values: discipline, honor, a belief in the existing values and the rightness of them. Coincidentally, it's at Groton that one starts to meet the right people, and where connections which will serve well later on – be it at Wall Street or Washington – are first forged; one learns, at Groton, above all, the rules of the Game and even a special language: what washes and does not wash.
He was admitted to Yale University, one year behind his brother William. When applying to Yale, Bundy wrote on the entrance exam: "This question is silly. If I were giving the test, this is the question I would ask, and this is my answer." He was still admitted to Yale as he achieved perfect score on his entrance exam. At Yale, he served as secretary of the Yale Political Union and then chairman of its Liberal Party. He was on the staff of the Yale Literary Magazine and also wrote a column for the Yale Daily News, while, as a senior, he was awarded the Alpheus Henry Snow Prize. Like his father, he was inducted into the Skull and Bones secret society, where he was nicknamed "Odin." He remained in contact with his fellow Bonesmen for decades afterward. He graduated from Yale with an A.B. in mathematics in 1940. The same year, he advocated for American intervention in World War Two, writing: "Though war is evil, it is occasionally the lesser of two evils." In 1941, he was awarded a three-year Junior Fellowship in the Harvard Society of Fellows. At the time, Fellows were not allowed to pursue advanced degrees, "a requirement intended to keep them off the standard academic treadmill"; thus, Bundy would never earn a doctorate.
In 1941, he ran for the Ward 5 Seat on the Boston City Council. He was endorsed by the outgoing incumbent, Henry Lee Shattuck, but lost to A. Frank Foster by 92 votes.
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