Ramrod-straight, sober-faced, patrician, calm: he was almost the Hollywood image of an American ambassador. For six exhausting years he exercised more authority than most of his diplomatic colleagues ever dreamed of possessing. Always immaculate, even in Saigon's long, humid afternoons, always self-possessed, even in the face of deliberate snubs from the South Viet Nam government, Ellsworth Bunker, for better or worse, was at the epicenter of the longest and most difficult war in American history.
He was called "the Blue-Eyed Sorcerer" and "the Icebox" by the Vietnamese, who respected his courtly patience but feared his power. "Ah, if we had had...