When Dean Acheson, secretary of state to President Harry S. Truman, sought a title for his memoirs, he hit upon a quote from the 13th century Spanish king Alfonso The Wise: "Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe."It provided an apt name - Present at the Creation - for a book about a small group of policy-makers who, in the aftermath of the second world war, became midwives to a new world order.The Truman administration was witness to the creation of the state of Israel,...