November 14, 2009
Appropriate
Here are some things I learned about the Pentagon from House of War by James Carroll:

• The building that now holds the State Department was built in the late thirties to house the Department of War. But by the time it was finished the War Department had already outgrown it, so they had to find another location. Since American "diplomacy" and American wars have been essentially the same thing since then, it's a nice accident of history.

• The Pentagon was designed by the architect George Edwin Bergstrom, who also designed the Hollywood Bowl. American show business and American war: two great tastes that taste like unexploded bomblets together.

• Construction of the Pentagon was overseen by Leslie Groves. Groves had spent part of his childhood in the home of famed Indian-killer General Nelson Miles while growing up at Fort Apache, Arizona. Since the U.S. government is now operating on the assumption that the entire world is "Indian Country" this is gratifying historical continuity. (Groves would later also be in change of the Manhattan Project.)

—Jonathan Schwarz