The importance of Colonel Edward M. House in twentieth-century American foreign policy is enormous: from 1913 to 1919 he served not only as intimate friend and chief political adviser to President Woodrow Wilson but also as national security adviser and senior diplomat. Yet the relationship between House and the president ended in a quarrel at the Paris peace conference of 1919--largely because of Mrs. Wilson's hostility to House--and House has received little sympathetic historical attention since. This extensively researched book reintroduces House and clearly establishes his contributions as one of the greatest American diplomats.