 Historian Walter Isaacson argues that in many ways Clifford resembled the fout wise men who shaped American foreign policy in the 1940s and early 1950s – Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman, Robert A. Lovett, and John J. McCloy.However, Isaacson argues, "Clifford remained a Wise Man wannabe because he could never quite shake his reputation as a partisan Wheeler-dealer and manipulator.