If you are not familiar with the Friedman book I very highly recommend it. He focuses on the military and technological side, a good balance to the diplo stuff.

Recs – I’m tilting toward Cold War historical subcategories:

The Fifty-Year Wound: How America’s Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World by Derek Leebaert

Incorporated much of the new post-Cold War archival material. emphasis on the costs of the conflict.

The Cold War: A New History by John Lewis Gaddis

A sound popular history by the top American diplomatic historian. Gaddis sharply rebuts much of the Revisionist-Left arguments about the Cold War

Present at the Creation by Dean Acheson

Acheson’s memoir is without peer, despite the much greater reticence with which statesmen wrote their public reflections at that time. Still used with regularity as a source by historians today.

Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin by George F. Kennnan

A solid, though idiosyncratic, work by the Father of Containment. Lays out how the USSR fit into his worldview as a policy maker and diplomat.

In Confidence by Anatoly Dobrynin

The longtime Soviet ambassador to the United States was also a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU who had, esp. in his later career, direct connections to several Politburo members. His role in the Soviet foreign service was very rare and abnormally authoritative

Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America by Walter Lafeber

Best argued Left-revisionist history of U.S. intervention in Latin America written – puts cold war policy there in a context of continuity. Sharply critical without wandering into ahistoricality.

From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War by Robert M. Gates

A great memoir about national security policy making in the later Cold War years. Emphasis on IC.

America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 by George C Herring

Generally regarded as one of the best, concise, general histories of the Vietnam War

Which brings us to the future – who are the presidential candidates proposing for State? I’ve heard Kerry mentioned for Obama.

Doug Feith’s book “War and Decision” certainly highlights the importance of a strong and loyal, reform-mined appointment.

One of the things Suri always emphasized to his students was how wrong conventional wisdom is so much of the time. A favorite thesis of his is that Reagan was a humanitarian first–he decried the ethically and morally opaque nature of detente, that the USSR was an evil empire, and that a world without nuclear weapons was worth striving for. These views ultimately took shape in both the SDI, and concurrently, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Nonetheless conventional wisdom of Reagan takes the view that he was an intellectually-weak dollard, an actor who has more in common with Chance Gardner (“Being There”) than being a transformative political figure like a Kennedy, a Roosevelt, etc.

I’m sure that Suri won’t disappoint this time, as the destroys the CW of Kissinger.

Fred: “I would suggest reading Legacy of Ashes, the history of the CIA”.

This review convinced me not to bother with that one.

The reviewer makes the point that, contra what you say, Kissinger was not worse than other Cold War-era Secretaries of State. I am inclined to believe that. Read the review I linked to. (BTW, I have a policy of deleting your comments, due to prior bad behavior. But since you are playing nicely, i.e. staying on the subject, being civil, being brief, you can stay on my porch for now.)