Jones (security studies, US Army War College), who served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, offers a biography of Robert Komer, who was a Cold War national security policy and strategy adviser to three presidents. After background on Komer's childhood and education, Jones describes how he was a National Security Council staff member during the Kennedy administration and shaped aggressive American foreign policies and US relations with countries that were battlegrounds between communism and capitalism. He outlines his activities during the three years he was named President Johnson's "point man" for Vietnam pacification policy, in which the president thought communism could be combated through economic and social development and military force in Southeast Asia, and became the architect of the military's Civil Operations and Revolutionary Support program and General Westmoreland's operational deputy for his effort in Vietnam. He examines Komer's work during the Carter administration as special adviser to Secretary of Defense Harold Brown and as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and shows how he re-energized the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's conventional capability and created the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, which implemented the Carter Doctrine in the Persian Gulf. He also details Komer's final role as a defense intellectual and critic of the Reagan administration's defense policies and his impact on American policy and strategy and contributions to counterinsurgency practices. The biography is based on interviews that historians and journalists conducted with Komer, official memoranda, cables, other government documents, and what others said about him. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)