Master of famine relief and the 31st president, broken by the Great Depression
'Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!', Hoover's reply when asked whether feeding Russia would not help Bolshevism.
A mining engineer who made a vast fortune, Hoover built his public fame on famine relief across two world wars before becoming the 31st president of the United States in 1929. During the First World War he headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium and the U.S. Food Administration ('food czar') in feeding millions, and after the war he refashioned the American Relief Administration (ARA) into a private body directing relief across Eastern Europe and Russia. When famine struck the Volga in 1921 he answered Gorky's appeal at once and personally drove the Riga agreement, securing the ARA's autonomy in distribution and Soviet gold payments and feeding more than ten million people a day at the operation's peak. He struggled as president amid the Great Depression but remained active in retirement, chairing reform commissions for the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.
Career timeline
- 1874Born into a Quaker family in West Branch, Iowa
- 1895Graduated from Stanford; made a fortune as a mining engineer in China, Australia and beyond
- 1914–1919Chairman of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, feeding occupied Belgium
- 1917–1919Director of the U.S. Food Administration, celebrated as the 'food czar'
- 1919–1923Director of the American Relief Administration, leading relief in Eastern Europe and Russia
- 1921.08.20Conclusion of the Riga agreement, setting the terms of Volga famine relief
- 1921–1928Secretary of Commerce
- 1929–193331st president; lost reelection amid the Great Depression
A pragmatic architect of the postwar U.S. international order
Khrushchev warned that the U.S. military buildup threatened war.
John J. McCloy was an American lawyer, security official, diplomat, and banker who connected wartime administration with the construction of the postwar international order. His record included responsibility for Japanese-American internment and consequential decisions on German war criminals, exposing both the reach and contradictions of U.S. power. In 1961, as John F. Kennedy’s arms-control adviser, he pursued test-ban and disarmament talks with the Soviet Union and confronted the military tensions surrounding Berlin in his July meeting with Khrushchev.
Career timeline
- 1917–1919U.S. Army artillery officer, service in France
- 1921–1940New York lawyer and Wall Street attorney
- 1941–1945Assistant Secretary of War, wartime mobilization, intelligence, and security policy
- 1947–1949Second President of the World Bank
- 1949–1952U.S. High Commissioner for Germany
- 1953–1960Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank
- 1953–1970Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations
- 1961President Kennedy’s arms-control adviser
The Cold Warrior who opened détente with Moscow and Beijing, then became the only U.S. president to resign
At the 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow, standing before a model kitchen, Nixon told Khrushchev, "There may be some instances, for example, color television, where we are ahead of you," in an impromptu debate that became known as the Kitchen Debate.
A tenacious politician who rose from anti-communist congressman to vice president, Nixon overcame two bitter defeats to capture the presidency in 1968. The quintessential Cold Warrior, he unexpectedly became the architect of détente, visiting Moscow in May 1972 to sign the ABM Treaty and the SALT I Interim Agreement with Leonid Brezhnev; the first legally binding limits on the superpowers' nuclear arsenals. He ended U.S. combat involvement in Vietnam and opened relations with Mao's China, yet his presidency collapsed in the Watergate scandal; on August 9, 1974, he became the only U.S. president to resign. He spent his final decades rehabilitating his image as an elder statesman, but his legacy remains suspended between the achievement of détente and the crimes that destroyed his presidency.
Career timeline
- 1946–1950U.S. Representative (CA-12); gained national fame through the Alger Hiss case on HUAC
- 1950–1953U.S. Senator from California
- 1953–1961Vice President of the United States (Eisenhower administration); 1959 Moscow 'Kitchen Debate'
- 1961–1968Law practice, writing; lost 1962 California gubernatorial race, then rebuilt politically
- 1969–197437th U.S. President; signed SALT I and ABM Treaty at the 1972 Moscow Summit, ended Vietnam War, visited China; resigned 1974 over Watergate
The unelected president who steered détente into its final phase
On the train to Vladivostok, when Ford grumbled how snarled Washington's traffic grew in snow, Brezhnev leaned over the table: "Well, that will be our first deal. We'll send you Soviet snowplows."
A Republican who spent twenty-five years in the House and served as vice president before succeeding Nixon after his resignation in 1974, Ford remains the only American president never elected to national office. He carried on Nixon's détente, meeting Brezhnev at Vladivostok in 1974 to fix the SALT II framework of 2,400 delivery vehicles and a 1,320 sub-limit on MIRVed systems, and a year later signed the Helsinki Final Act while turning the Jackson-Vanik amendment into law. His pardon of Nixon was the defining controversy of his presidency, and he lost the 1976 election to Carter.
Career timeline
- 1949–1973U.S. Representative, Michigan's 5th district
- 1965–1973House Minority Leader
- 1973–1974Vice President
- 1974–197738th President of the United States
- 1974.11Vladivostok summit: agreed the SALT II framework with Brezhnev
The quantitative defense secretary who led the Vietnam War and helped prevent nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis
The major lesson of the Cuban missile crisis: the indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.
The eighth U.S. Secretary of Defense (1961–1968), and its longest-serving holder, leading the Pentagon under both Kennedy and Johnson for over seven years. In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, he was the first in EXCOMM to propose a naval 'quarantine' over an airstrike and became its fiercest advocate, arguing it would show Khrushchev resolve while remaining a controlled choice that need not escalate into military conflict. Yet in Vietnam, the same quantitative analyst who championed escalation grew privately skeptical, and 27 years after leaving office he confessed in his memoir that the war was 'wrong, terribly wrong.' He later served as president of the World Bank (1968–1981), redirecting its focus from infrastructure to poverty reduction.
Career timeline
- 1943–1946USAAF Office of Statistical Control, discharged as Lt. Col.
- 1946–1960Ford Motor Company, president (1960)
- 1961–19688th U.S. Secretary of Defense
- 1968–1981President of the World Bank
The US president who declared the Cold War over with Gorbachev at Malta, yet whose caution nearly let history slip away
At the Malta joint press conference Bush declared: 'We can realise a lasting peace and transform the East-West relationship to one of enduring co-operation. That is the future that Chairman Gorbachev and I began right here in Malta.'
George H. W. Bush went from World War II naval aviator to oil magnate to the 41st president of the United States, bringing to the White House foreign-policy experience unmatched by any predecessor: CIA director, UN ambassador, and de facto ambassador to China. Upon taking office in 1989 he ordered a strategic review of Soviet policy, the so-called 'Bush pause,' that frustrated Gorbachev, but at the Malta summit that December the two leaders jointly confirmed the Cold War's end, and Bush's steady support for German reunification helped anchor the new European order. He built a multinational coalition to expel Iraq from Kuwait in the Gulf War, then lost his 1992 re-election bid after breaking his 'no new taxes' pledge amid a recession.
Career timeline
- 1924Born in Milton, Massachusetts, into a wealthy political dynasty
- 1942–1945Navy torpedo-bomber pilot; shot down at Chichijima, rescued by submarine
- 1953–1966Built Zapata Offshore oil company; Texas millionaire
- 1967–1971Congressman from Texas; two failed Senate campaigns
- 1971–1977UN Ambassador, RNC chair, envoy to China, CIA Director
- 1981–1989Vice President under Ronald Reagan
- 1989–199341st President: Malta summit ending the Cold War, German reunification, Gulf War
- 2018Died in Houston aged 94
A cautious strategist at the Cold War's end
He worried that the Malta Summit was premature, yet ultimately helped make it happen.
Brent Scowcroft was a former U.S. Air Force officer and national-security official whose realist approach emphasized disciplined policy coordination between presidents, diplomats, and military leaders. As national security adviser to Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush, he helped manage arms policy and European diplomacy during the final years of the Cold War. He initially regarded the 1989 Malta Summit as premature because it might raise expectations without producing results, but then helped the administration navigate the meeting and the rapid transformation of U.S.-Soviet relations. In later years he continued to favor alliances and international institutions, criticizing the Iraq invasion and unilateralism.
Career timeline
- 1947Graduated from West Point and commissioned as a U.S. Air Force second lieutenant
- 1953Earned an M.A. in international relations from Columbia University
- 1967Earned a Ph.D. in international relations from Columbia University
- 1972–1973Military Assistant to President Richard Nixon
- 1973–1975Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
- 1975–1977National Security Adviser to President Gerald Ford
- 1989–1993National Security Adviser to President George H. W. Bush
- 2001–2005Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board
