Bundy, McGeorge, 1919-1996

McGeorge Bundy (1919-1996) was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the national security advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He attended school at private institutions, including Dexter, Groton, and Yale University, from which he graduated first in his class with a degree in mathematics. As a junior fellow at Harvard University, Bundy changed his specialization to international relations. After serving in U.S. Army Intelligence during World War II, during which he rose to the rank of captain, Bundy worked shortly on the Marshall Plan and as an assistant to Henry L. Stimson, a former secretary of war. A registered Republican, Bundy advised Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York in his unsuccessful bid for the presidency against Henry S. Truman.

In 1949 Bundy became a lecturer of government on the Harvard University faculty. He quickly rose to become the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at age thirty-two. Bundy left the university in 1961 to serve as a special assistant for national security at the request of President John F. Kennedy. During his five-year tenure on the White House staff, Bundy became known for his agile intellect, integrity, and patriotic purpose, and was a gatekeeper for the President and a trusted advisor during the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis. After the assassination of President Kennedy, Bundy became an advisor to President Lyndon Johnson, whom he counseled to escalate military actions in Vietnam. Frustrated with the war and his relations with President Johnson, Bundy left the White House in 1966 to head the Ford Foundation.

During his thirteen years at the Ford Foundation, Bundy refocused the organization's efforts on race relations. The next decade he spent teaching history at New York University. During this time Bundy published his Pulitzer-prize-winning book Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb and the First Fifty Years, in which he chronicled decisions made about nuclear weaponry. From 1990 to 1993, Bundy chaired the Carnegie Corporation's committee on reducing nuclear danger. At the time of his death, Bundy was a scholar in residence with this corporation.