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A History
Random House
June 2007
On Sale: June 5, 2007
656 pages
ISBN: 1400063035
EAN: 9781400063031
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
The creation of the Pentagon in seventeen whirlwind months
during World War II is one of the great construction feats
in American history, involving a tremendous mobilization of
manpower, resources, and minds. In astonishingly short
order, Brigadier General Brehon B. Somervell conceived and
built an institution that ranks with the White House, the
Vatican, and a handful of other structures as symbols
recognized around the world. Now veteran military reporter
Steve Vogel reveals for the first time the remarkable story
of the Pentagon’s construction, from it’s dramatic birth to
its rebuilding after the September 11 attack. At the center of the story is the tempestuous but courtly
Somervell–“dynamite in a Tiffany box,” as he was once
described. In July 1941, the Army construction chief sprang
the idea of building a single, huge headquarters that could
house the entire War Department, then scattered in seventeen
buildings around Washington. Somervell ordered drawings
produced in one weekend and, despite a firestorm of
opposition, broke ground two months later, vowing that the
building would be finished in little more than a year.
Thousands of workers descended on the site, a raffish
Virginia neighborhood known as Hell’s Bottom, while an army
of draftsmen churned out designs barely one step ahead of
their execution. Seven months later the first Pentagon
employees skirted seas of mud to move into the building and
went to work even as construction roared around them. The
colossal Army headquarters helped recast Washington from a
sleepy southern town into the bustling center of a reluctant
empire. Vivid portraits are drawn of other key figures in the drama,
among them Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president who fancied
himself an architect; Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and
Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall, both
desperate for a home for the War Department as the country
prepared for battle; Colonel Leslie R. Groves, the ruthless
force of nature who oversaw the Pentagon’s construction (as
well as the Manhattan Project to create an atomic bomb); and
John McShain, the charming and dapper builder who used his
relationship with FDR to help land himself the contract for
the biggest office building in the world. The Pentagon’s post-World War II history is told through its
critical moments, including the troubled birth of the
Department of Defense during the Cold War, the tense days of
the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the tumultuous 1967 protest
against the Vietnam War. The pivotal attack on September 11
is related with chilling new detail, as is the race to
rebuild the damaged Pentagon, a restoration that echoed the
spirit of its creation. This study of a single enigmatic building tells a broader
story of modern American history, from the eve of World War
II to the new wars of the twenty-first century. Steve Vogel
has crafted a dazzling work of military social history that
merits comparison with the best works of David Halberstam or
David McCullough. Like its namesake, The Pentagon is a true
landmark.
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