Andrew Preston is W. L. Lyons Brown Jr. Jefferson Scholars Foundation Distinguished Professor in Diplomacy and Statecraft at the University of Virginia. He is the author of The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC, and Vietnam and the prizewinning Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy. His writing has appeared in the Washington Post, London Review of Books, and Foreign Affairs.