The Karl Rove of Woodrow Wilson ; Sadly, a Relationship Destroyed over the Struggle to End Warfare

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Senior advisers to the president of the United States are very public figures. Their impact on public policy is widely recognized, and the media often accords them more attention than cabinet secretaries and members of Congress.

This was not always so. Col. Edward House, arguably the most influential presidential adviser in American history, is virtually unknown today except among professional historians. But this quiet, private man had an enormous influence on President Woodrow Wilson and American foreign policy before, during and after World War I.

According to the British scholar Godfrey Hodgson, House "was the ablest diplomat the U.S. had produced up to his …