The Last American Aristocrat

Elegantly written and solidly researched, this first biography by Lankford, editor of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vividly evokes one of the last members of the affluent transnational elite who dominated postwar American foreign policy. Born into Old South privilege and married (at first) to the pampered daughter of billionaire Andrew Mellon, Bruce might have settled in as a bon vivant. A taste of pre-Versailles European intrigue as an Army courier, however, proved as heady as the fine wines he imbibed. When a new war loomed, he signed up for clandestine work with the new OSS, after which he was seldom far from the corridors of power. His connections in both political parties led to posts too tempting to turn down. With his multilingual second wife, Evangeline, he moved from assignment to assignment. He presided over the beginnings of the Marshall Plan and the EEC and served at the embassies in Paris, London and Bonn. At 70, Bruce was pressed into the Paris peace talks with North Vietnam. Then he opened the first--but informal--embassy in Beijing, and at 76 went to Brussels as NATO representative. Although much indebted to Bruce's diaries, portions of which Lankford published in 1991, the biography fleshes out the life with a felicity the old patrician would have admired. Photos not seen by PW. (Aug.)