Humility leads to strength and not to weakness. It is the highest form of self-respect to admit mistakes and to make amends for them.


John McCloy was Assistant Secretary of War during World War II. He pushed for the interment of Japanese citizens. He opposed the dropping of the atomic bomb.

After the war he became President of World Bank, Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and member of the Warren Commission.

Initially he was skeptical of the Oswald as the lone gunman story. However a trip to Dallas with his old friend Allan Dulles convinced him it would not be good to have an alternate story as part of their report. Because of this he convinced several other doubters to sign the report since tracking down a conspiracy would be beyond the scope of the committee.

The Chairman: John J McCloy & The Making of the American Establishment
by Kai Bird

Against the backgrounds of World War II, the Cold War, the construction of Pax Americana, the Cuban missile crisis, the Kennedy assassination, and Vietnam, Bird shows us McCloy’s astonishing rise from self-described “chore boy” to “chairman of the Establishment.”

His powerful circle shaped the postwar globe. But McCloy stood out among them as a towering figure of achievement: as a Wall Street lawyer who earned the confidence of captains of industry and presidents; as Henry Stimson’s right-hand man at the War Department; as president of the World Bank and chairman of the Chase financial empire; and as presidential adviser.

Bird captures every facet of this self-made man. We see McCloy’s commercial acumen as the most in-demand lawyer of Wall Street; his dictatorial will as high commissioner of occupied Germany; and his stoic loyalty as adviser to Presidents FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Ford, and Reagan.

Bird brilliantly explores how McCloy came to epitomize the American Establishment and the values of a generation that led the United States through bitter war and unparalleled prosperity.