Secretaries of State: Dean Acheson
Dean Acheson was Secretary of State in the administration of President Harry Truman from 1949 to 1953. These were interesting times, as Acheson played a key role in defining American foreign policy during the Cold War, policy that would define the times for years to come. Acheson helped design the Marshall Plan and was a key player in the development of the Truman Doctrine and in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He helped to convince Truman to intervene in the Korean War in June 1950 and to send advisors to French forces in Indochina.
His full name was Dean Gooderham Acheson and he was born April 11, 1893 in Middletown, Connecticut. His father, Edward Campion Acheson, was an English-born Canadian who served in the Queens' Own Rifles, and who later became a Church of England priest and moved to Connecticut, where he became an Episcopal Bishop. His mother, the former Eleanor Gertrude Gooderham, was also Canadian-born and was member of the Gooderham and Worts Distillery family.
Acheson attended Groton School and Yale College. After graduation from Yale, he attended Harvard Law School from 1915 to 1918, and finished fifth in his class. On May 15, 1917, while serving in the National Guard, he married Alice Caroline Stanley. The couple had three children together. On July 25, 1918, Acheson was commissioned as an ensign in the Naval Reserve and served with the Naval Overseas Transportation Service until December 31 that year.
Acheson clerked in the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Louis Brandeis for two terms from 1919 to 1921. He worked at Washington D.C. law firm, Covington & Burling, and was active in the Democratic Party. In March of 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed him to the position of Undersecretary of the United States Treasury. When Secretary William H. Woodin became ill, Acheson served as acting secretary. He resigned from the Treasury Department in November of 1933 because of his opposition to Roosevelt's plan to deflate the dollar by controlling gold prices. Acheson returned to his law practice, though in 1939 he was asked to chair a committee to study the operation of administrative bureaus in the federal government and did so.
Acheson was hired as assistant Secretary of State in 1941, and one of his duties was to implement the economic policy of aiding Great Britain. Acheson implemented FDR's famous "Lend-Lease Policy" that helped re-arm Great Britain. He oversaw thee American/British/Dutch oil embargo that cut off 95 percent of Japanese oil supplies.
In 1944, Acheson attended the Bretton Woods Conference as the head delegate from the State department. This was the conference at which the post-war international economic structure was designed. The conference was the birthplace of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (which would later become the World Trade Organization.)
In late 1945, President Harry S. Truman selected Acheson as his Undersecretary of the Department of State. He worked under Secretaries of State Edward Stettinius, Jr., James F. Byrnes, and George Marshall. In that role he tried to promote détente with the Soviet Union, and in 1946, he served as chairman of a special committee to prepare a plan for the international control of atomic energy. This committee produced the Acheson–Lilienthal report.
At first Acheson took a conciliatory approach towards Joseph Stalin. But his point of view changed as the Soviet Union attempted to control Eastern Europe and parts of Southwest Asia. Acheson often was acting Secretary of State during the Secretary's frequent overseas trips, and he was able to develop a close relationship with President Truman. Acheson wrote Truman's 1947 request to Congress calling for aid to Greece and Turkey. In the speech Truman was critical of Soviet aggression and established what became known as the Truman Doctrine. Acheson helped to design the economic aid program to Europe that became known as the Marshall Plan. He believed the best way to contain Stalin's Communism was to restore economic prosperity to Western Europe.
In 1949, Truman appointed Acheson to serve as his Secretary of State, following Truman's unexpected victory in the 1948 Presidential Election. As Secretary of State, Acheson pursued a policy containment, first formulated by George Kennan, who served as the head of Acheson's Policy Planning Staff. Acheson was the main planner of the military alliance that became known as NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and signed the pact on behalf of the United States. The formation of NATO was a dramatic departure from historic American foreign policy goals of what Washington had called the avoidance of "entangling alliances."
During the summer of 1949, the state department, headed by Acheson, produced a study of Chinese-American relations. The document was known officially as United States Relations with China with Special Reference to the Period 1944–1949, but was better known as the China White Paper. It was published during the time of Mao Zedong's takeover. It argued against American intervention in China, which it concludided was doomed to failure. Acheson and Truman had hoped that the study would dispel rumors and conjecture, but instead it emboldened Truman's critics, who accused the President of failing to check the spread of communism in China and allowing China to fall to the Communists.
The Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950. Many believed that the United States would not become involved in the war based on Acheson's statements. The Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949 had changed China from a close friend of the U.S. to a bitter enemy. The two powers were at war in Korea by 1950. Critics blamed Acheson for the "loss of China" Acheson ridiculed his critics in his memoirs and maintained his role as a firm anti-communist. But a number of anti-communists were critical of him for not taking a more active role in attacking communism abroad and domestically. He and Secretary of Defense George Marshall came under attack from men such as Senator Joseph McCarthy, and Acheson's policy of containment was really one of appeasement, according to Acheson's critics. Congressman Richard Nixon, who as president would later call on Acheson for advice, ridiculed what he called "Acheson's College of Cowardly Communist Containment". This criticism grew after Acheson refused to "turn his back on Alger Hiss" when Hiss was accused of being a Communist spy, and convicted of perjury for denying he was a spy.
When the Republicans retook the White House in the 1952 election, that spelled the end of Acheson's term in the State Department. He retired on January 20, 1953, the last day of the Truman administration. He went on to serve on the Yale Board of Trustees along with Senator Robert A. Taft, one of his sharpest critics. Acheson returned to his private law practice. Although his official governmental career was over, he remained influential among Democrats, though he was ignored by the Eisenhower administration. His law office was located only a few blocks from the White House. He became an unofficial advisor to the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was dispatched by Kennedy to France to brief French President Charles de Gaulle and gain his support for the United States blockade. But Acheson was so strongly against the final decision to simply blockade, and he resigned from the Executive Committee.
In 1964, Acheson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with Distinction. During the 1960s, he was a leading member of a bipartisan group of establishment elders known as The Wise Men, who initially supported the Vietnam War, but then turned against it at a critical meeting with President Lyndon Johnson in March 1968. He quietly became a major advisor to President Richard Nixon, his former political enemy. when he was president.
In 1970, Acheson won the Pulitzer Prize for History for his memoirs of his tenure in the State Department, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. The following year, at 6:00 p.m. on October 12, 1971, Acheson died of a massive stroke, at his farm home in Sandy Spring, Maryland, at the age of 78. Acheson was interred in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, Washington, DC.
His full name was Dean Gooderham Acheson and he was born April 11, 1893 in Middletown, Connecticut. His father, Edward Campion Acheson, was an English-born Canadian who served in the Queens' Own Rifles, and who later became a Church of England priest and moved to Connecticut, where he became an Episcopal Bishop. His mother, the former Eleanor Gertrude Gooderham, was also Canadian-born and was member of the Gooderham and Worts Distillery family.
Acheson attended Groton School and Yale College. After graduation from Yale, he attended Harvard Law School from 1915 to 1918, and finished fifth in his class. On May 15, 1917, while serving in the National Guard, he married Alice Caroline Stanley. The couple had three children together. On July 25, 1918, Acheson was commissioned as an ensign in the Naval Reserve and served with the Naval Overseas Transportation Service until December 31 that year.
Acheson clerked in the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Louis Brandeis for two terms from 1919 to 1921. He worked at Washington D.C. law firm, Covington & Burling, and was active in the Democratic Party. In March of 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed him to the position of Undersecretary of the United States Treasury. When Secretary William H. Woodin became ill, Acheson served as acting secretary. He resigned from the Treasury Department in November of 1933 because of his opposition to Roosevelt's plan to deflate the dollar by controlling gold prices. Acheson returned to his law practice, though in 1939 he was asked to chair a committee to study the operation of administrative bureaus in the federal government and did so.
Acheson was hired as assistant Secretary of State in 1941, and one of his duties was to implement the economic policy of aiding Great Britain. Acheson implemented FDR's famous "Lend-Lease Policy" that helped re-arm Great Britain. He oversaw thee American/British/Dutch oil embargo that cut off 95 percent of Japanese oil supplies.
In 1944, Acheson attended the Bretton Woods Conference as the head delegate from the State department. This was the conference at which the post-war international economic structure was designed. The conference was the birthplace of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (which would later become the World Trade Organization.)
In late 1945, President Harry S. Truman selected Acheson as his Undersecretary of the Department of State. He worked under Secretaries of State Edward Stettinius, Jr., James F. Byrnes, and George Marshall. In that role he tried to promote détente with the Soviet Union, and in 1946, he served as chairman of a special committee to prepare a plan for the international control of atomic energy. This committee produced the Acheson–Lilienthal report.
At first Acheson took a conciliatory approach towards Joseph Stalin. But his point of view changed as the Soviet Union attempted to control Eastern Europe and parts of Southwest Asia. Acheson often was acting Secretary of State during the Secretary's frequent overseas trips, and he was able to develop a close relationship with President Truman. Acheson wrote Truman's 1947 request to Congress calling for aid to Greece and Turkey. In the speech Truman was critical of Soviet aggression and established what became known as the Truman Doctrine. Acheson helped to design the economic aid program to Europe that became known as the Marshall Plan. He believed the best way to contain Stalin's Communism was to restore economic prosperity to Western Europe.
In 1949, Truman appointed Acheson to serve as his Secretary of State, following Truman's unexpected victory in the 1948 Presidential Election. As Secretary of State, Acheson pursued a policy containment, first formulated by George Kennan, who served as the head of Acheson's Policy Planning Staff. Acheson was the main planner of the military alliance that became known as NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and signed the pact on behalf of the United States. The formation of NATO was a dramatic departure from historic American foreign policy goals of what Washington had called the avoidance of "entangling alliances."
During the summer of 1949, the state department, headed by Acheson, produced a study of Chinese-American relations. The document was known officially as United States Relations with China with Special Reference to the Period 1944–1949, but was better known as the China White Paper. It was published during the time of Mao Zedong's takeover. It argued against American intervention in China, which it concludided was doomed to failure. Acheson and Truman had hoped that the study would dispel rumors and conjecture, but instead it emboldened Truman's critics, who accused the President of failing to check the spread of communism in China and allowing China to fall to the Communists.
The Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950. Many believed that the United States would not become involved in the war based on Acheson's statements. The Communist takeover of mainland China in 1949 had changed China from a close friend of the U.S. to a bitter enemy. The two powers were at war in Korea by 1950. Critics blamed Acheson for the "loss of China" Acheson ridiculed his critics in his memoirs and maintained his role as a firm anti-communist. But a number of anti-communists were critical of him for not taking a more active role in attacking communism abroad and domestically. He and Secretary of Defense George Marshall came under attack from men such as Senator Joseph McCarthy, and Acheson's policy of containment was really one of appeasement, according to Acheson's critics. Congressman Richard Nixon, who as president would later call on Acheson for advice, ridiculed what he called "Acheson's College of Cowardly Communist Containment". This criticism grew after Acheson refused to "turn his back on Alger Hiss" when Hiss was accused of being a Communist spy, and convicted of perjury for denying he was a spy.
When the Republicans retook the White House in the 1952 election, that spelled the end of Acheson's term in the State Department. He retired on January 20, 1953, the last day of the Truman administration. He went on to serve on the Yale Board of Trustees along with Senator Robert A. Taft, one of his sharpest critics. Acheson returned to his private law practice. Although his official governmental career was over, he remained influential among Democrats, though he was ignored by the Eisenhower administration. His law office was located only a few blocks from the White House. He became an unofficial advisor to the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was dispatched by Kennedy to France to brief French President Charles de Gaulle and gain his support for the United States blockade. But Acheson was so strongly against the final decision to simply blockade, and he resigned from the Executive Committee.
In 1964, Acheson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with Distinction. During the 1960s, he was a leading member of a bipartisan group of establishment elders known as The Wise Men, who initially supported the Vietnam War, but then turned against it at a critical meeting with President Lyndon Johnson in March 1968. He quietly became a major advisor to President Richard Nixon, his former political enemy. when he was president.
In 1970, Acheson won the Pulitzer Prize for History for his memoirs of his tenure in the State Department, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. The following year, at 6:00 p.m. on October 12, 1971, Acheson died of a massive stroke, at his farm home in Sandy Spring, Maryland, at the age of 78. Acheson was interred in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, Washington, DC.