Dean Acheson

Dean Acheson (1893-1971), was the American diplomat who was primarily responsibly for shaping American foreign policy during the early Cold War years, 1945-1952, including the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, NATO, the Korean War, and the implementation of the containment strategy.

Early career

Acheson was born in Middletown, Connecticut, April 11, 1893. His father was a prominent Episcopalian minister; both parents were Canadians and he had a slight British accent and demeanor that annoyed his Anglophobic critics. They accused him sith some justificiation of having a pro-British bias. He was educated at the Groton School, graduated from Yale College in 1915, and took his LLB law degree from Harvard Law School in 1918. During World War I he served as an ensign in the U.S. Navy; from 1919 to 1921 was clerk to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. He practiced law with Covington and Burling in Washington, starting in 1921, whenever he was not in government service.

Government service

President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him undersecretary of the Treasury, on May 19, 1933. Because of his opposition to the gold-purchase plan, he resigned the following November 15 and resumed his law practice. In 1939-1940 he headed a committee to study the operation of administrative bureaus in the federal government. Acheson was appointed assistant secretary of state in 1941, and in 1945 he was appointed undersecretary of state.

Cold War

In 1946, as chairman of a special committee to prepare a plan for the international control of atomic energy, he wrote the Acheson-Lilienthal report. He resigned as undersecretary of state, June 30, 1947, and resumed his law practice. On Jan. 7, 1949, Acheson was appointed secretary of state to succeed George C. Marshall. Earlier, Acheson had promoted UNRRA and the Bretton Woods Conference and he had also been closely involved in the creation of the Marshall Plan. After 1946, his attitude toward the Soviet Union had changed from one of conciliation to one of containment. As secretary, he was instrumental in creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949-1950 and in engineering the Japanese peace treaty, signed in 1951. He was also responsible for building up the European Defense Community and for implementing U.S. policy in the Korean War.

Korean war

Acheson's speech on January 12, 1950, before the National Press Club seemed to say that South Korfea was beyond the line and that American support for the new Syngman Rhee government in South Korea would be limited. Crtitics later charged that Acheson's ambiguity provided Joseph Stalin and Kim Il-sung with reason to believe the US would not intevene if they invaded the South. However, evidence from Korean and Soviet archives demonstrates that Stalin and Kim's decisions were not influenced by Acheson's speech.

He retired as secretary of state on Jan. 20, 1953. Eisenhower ignore him but he later served as a foreign policy adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon.

Bibliography

• Beisner, Robert L. Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War (2006), 800pp; a standard scholarly biography; covers 1945-53 only
• Brinkley, Douglas. Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years, 1953-1971 (1992).
• Kaplan, Lawrence S. The Long Entanglement: NATO's First Fifty Years (1999) online edition
• Isaacson, Walter, and Evan Thomas. The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1997) 864pp; covers Acheson and colleagues Charles E. Bohlen, W. Averell Harriman, George Kennan, Robert Lovett, and John J. McCloy; excerpt and text search
• McGlothlen, Ronald L. Controlling the Waves: Dean Acheson and US Foreign Policy in Asia (1993) online edition
• McLellan, David S. Dean Acheson: The State Department Years (1976)
• McNay, John T. Acheson and Empire: The British Accent in American Foreign Policy (2001)
• Smith, Gaddis. Dean Acheson (1972)

Primary sources

• Acheson, Dean. A Democrat Looks at His Party (1955)
• Acheson, Dean. A Citizen Looks at Congress (1957)
• Acheson, Dean. Sketches from Life of Men I Have Known (1961)
• Acheson, Dean. Morning and Noon (1965)
• Acheson, Dean. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department(1969), 816pp; highly revealing memoir; won the Pulitzer prize; excerpt and text search
• McLellan, David S., and David C. Acheson, eds. Among Friends: Personal Letters of Dean Acheson (1980)