This chapter tells the tale of an important turning-point in the evolution of realism. As the editor of the discipline-shaping Neorealism and Its Critics (1986), Robert Keohane urged the conception of neorealism as the highest stage of realism, and Kenneth Waltz as neorealism’s founder and chief formulator. This endeavor basically involved reprinting and repurposing five previously-published articles—authored by Robert Cox, John Ruggie, Robert Keohane, Richard Ashley, and Robert Gilpin—to be read essential as seminal critiques of Waltz’s theory. To buttress this effort, Keohane invited Waltz to respond to “his critics” in the same volume. The first four sections analyze the articles of these five authors independently of the roles Keohane assigned to them; they highlight both their original intentions and the non-realist IR traditions they initiated. These sections also illustrate that, until 1986, “neorealism” had multiple meanings; consisted of many diverse theories; did not have a designated “founding father.” The last section focuses on Waltz’s response to these articles, stressing its recalcitrant nature. The chapter concludes that Waltz’s glorified status in the edited volume somewhat paradoxically came with the depiction of his theory as a vulnerable foil against which many IR theories would develop subsequently.