Starred Review.Washington Post journalist Vogel provides an incisive history of the Pentagon both as an architectural construct and as an American symbol,though not as an institution.Vogel traces the politics and design considerations involved in planning a new home for the previously scattered War Department in the early 1940s.Wartime conservation subsequently forced builders to use the least amount of steel possible,and much concrete.The Stripped Classical building-erected in 16 months at a cost of $85 million-was made with five sides chiefly because it lay on remnant acres between five appropriately angled roads.At the time,it was a massive undertaking: five concentric rings of offices,17.5 miles of corridors and a five-acre central courtyard.Vogel demonstrates how planners conceived the structure as fitting into L'Enfant's original plan for Washington,D.C.,and goes on to depict it as a national icon.

MAPS/ILLUSTRATIONS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CAST OF CHARACTERS

PRELUDE

PART Ⅰ

THE MAKING OF THE PENTAGON

  1 DYNAMITE IN A TIFFANY BOX

  2 THE SOMERVELL BLITZ

  3 DREAM BUILDING

  4 CARRYING L'ENFANT'S BANNER

  5 A FIRST-CLASS BATTLE

  6 HELL'S BOTTOM

  7 UNDER WAY

  8 THE VIEW FROM HIGH AND LOW

  9 THEY WOULDN'T DARE ATTACK PEARL HARBOR

  10 THE BIG PUSH

  11 THE PLANK WALKERS

  12 HELL-AN-GONE

  13 ONE OF THE WORST BLUNDERS OF THE WAR

  14 THE RACE TO MOVE IN THE HIGH COMMAND

  15  HEADQUARTERS FOR THE WAR

  16  WHAT TO DO WITH THE PENTAGON

PART Ⅱ

THE REMAKING OF THE PENTAGON

 17 NO DECENT PEACE

 18 THE BATTLE OF THE PENTAGON

 19 THE REMAKING OF THE PENTAGON

 20 SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

 21 THE PHOENIX PROJECT

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTES

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX