Acheson

...When Truman left office in 1952, Acheson's term as secretary of state came to an end, but it was not to be the end of his life as a public servant...

...I find this at least questionable...

...William Byron, S.J., Moderator...

...Christian charity--if, indeed, it was that--does not commend such political imprudence...

...Today's Russia is a threat principally to itself, China remains a tyranny but is much stronger...

...His rebellious nature was evident in his years at Yale, as were his sharp wit and his predilection for good times over bookish studies...

...Panelists will include: Mr...

...Whether or not the reality of the communio sanctorum has been so neglected in theology as to merit her description of it as "a sleeping symbol," there is no doubt but that its creative reappropriation is desirable, indeed imperative in a culture often marked more by fragmentation and disconnection than communion...

...Civil wars in different countries demand our attention, and modem technology has magnified the threat of terrorism...

...And Johnson is skilled, both in the architectonic sweep of her work and in her careful attention to detail...

...The work is Catholic in method: beginning with a first part that "frames the question" and probes the contemporary context, it proceeds to a second part that consults the "living tradition," biblical and patristic, conciliar and papal, before attempting its own systematic synthesis in part three...

...These include, notably, the Marshall Plan, which helped rebuild war-shattered Western Europe...

...He was a staunch ally of the president in making decisions about the H-bomb, the civil war in China (where he was prepared to discount Chiang Kai-shek and deal with Mao, whom he projected as the victor), in dealing with the North Korean invasion of South Korea, and with the subsequent insubordination of the redoubtable General Douglas MacArthur...

...Xiao Qiang, Executive Director of Human Rights in China, is one of the scheduled panelists...

...At Groton he was labeled disagreeable and immature...

...In a 1965 article "Ethics in International Relations Today," which Chace does not mention but which can be found in Amherst Alumni News of 1965, he dismissed, quite properly, critics of U.S...

...It is this bold assessment that allows Chace in his subtitle to go beyond Acheson's more modestly titled book, Present at the Creation...

...There was one lone figure, elegant in tailored topcoat and homburg, the undersecretary of state, Dean Acheson...

...He inspired both respect and trust even from many who differed with him on weighty policy matters...

...NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization...

...The forged-in-loyalty bond between Truman and Acheson "led to the creation of new institutions so powerful that they came to define--for Americans at home, for allies and adversaries, for good and all--an American international order...

...Chace begins with this engaging and telling incident, which foreshadowed the significant future relations between these two men...

...John Langan, S.J., Rev...

...On what were Acheson's accomplishments based...

...One incident deserves special attention in this regard and is a useful reminder of the moral complexity of the man...

...At different times in his career he spelled out standards that guided his actions...

...Charles O'Byrne, S.J., William Vanden Huevel, Panelists...

...For good and all" is surely hyperbolic...

...Acheson Catholic Social Teaching and Human Rights A Series of Panel Presentations Church of St...

...In the congressional elections of 1946, the Democrats, under Truman's leadership, suffered a massive defeat...

...Charles Norchi, Moderator...

...It weds passion, piety, and conceptual clarity in a way that has become recognizably "Johnsonian...

...Commonweal ai 4 October23, 1998...

...It was at Harvard Law School that he learned to see excellence as a goal and to graduate fifth in his class...

...Here he Commonweal 2 2 October 23, 1998 called upon the vast personal resources he had at his disposal: acute intelligence, a well-equipped mind, charm, wit, conceptual clarity, energy, balance, judgment-and integrity...

...Along with contemporaries such as George Kennan, Hans Morgenthau, and Reinhold Niebuhr he was a political realist...

...While a number of political leaders capitulated to Senator Joseph McCarthy and his scattershot accusations of Communist sympathies or party membership, Truman and Acheson, who became a high-profile target, stoutly resisted and counterattacked...

...A CATHOLIC WORK Robert P. Imbelli lizabeth Johnson's new book (in many ways a sequel to her influential She Who Is) explores a crucial component of the Catholic vision: the Communion of Saints...

...Like many other realists, Acheson was intellectually not realistic enough, failing to recognize the ethical values underlying the judgments that he described as pragmatic...

...What values infused his judgments...

...Professedly "feminist" in perspective and sensibility, Johnson has also clearly apprenticed in the school of Rahner whose influence is pervasive...

...the Bretton Woods accords, designed to stabilize an international financial and economic order through the instrumentalities of the World Bank (more formally, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development), and the IMF (International Monetary Fund...

...The following quote may serve to recapitulate that vision: "In the world of grace as in nature, everyone depends on everyone else, and the courage, witness, and love of one person affects the whole body, as indeed does everyone's James Finn, formerly a Commonweal editor, is president of the Pueblo Institute...

...Acheson's career was not, of course, one of all hits and no errors...

...In the event he referred to Matthew 25:34, but what was widely quoted and evoked a political storm was his simple statement: "I will not turn my back on Alger Hiss...

...When Harry Truman assumed the presidency on the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in June 1945, neither he nor the country was prepared for the change...

...The work is also Catholic, corporate and communal, in vision and discernment...

...To gain public and congressional support for the Marshall Plan he deliberately projected a Soviet threat that exceeded his own estimate and thus helped create a political atmosphere he would later try to change...

...One begins, conventionally, with his family and early education...

...Acheson's statement on Hiss was politically disastrous for the president as well as for himself and reduced his effectiveness as secretary of state...

...To bring about Senate ratification of NATO he responded to questions about the stationing of American troops in terms that he later described as "deplorably wrong" and "almost equally stupid...

...for Corporate Governance, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals...

...The institutions constructed under his guidance and the resolute actions he and Truman took did much to set the course of U.S...

...It is not only an absorbing biography and a sweeping historical overview of the years following World War 1/, it is a document that bears directly on our present post-cold war period...

...When Truman stepped off the train on his return to Washington, the high government officials who usually greeted the president were nowhere to be seen...

...In January 1950, Alger Hiss was found guilty of perjury for denying that he had passed secret documents to Whittaker Chambers when the latter was an active Communist agent...

...However, he showed his ability to get along with people very different from himself when he joined a rough and bawdy work crew that was pushing the railroad further westward...

...Delighted to see him, Truman invited him back to the White House for a drink...

...Terence Gallagher, V.P...

...Thursday, January 7, 1999 at 8 P.M.: Business Ethics Rev...

...His pragmatic judgments about Asian affairs--including his lack of support for Chiang's nationals and his omission of South Korea from an explicitly defined perimeter when he described what the United States would defend militarily---can still stir a small storm...

...But in dismissing the intellectual confusion that bedeviled then-current debates about ethical considerations in political matters he also contributed, I believe, to that confusion...

...Chace terms this an act of Christian charity and says it may have marked Acheson's finest hour...

...policy who seemed to believe that moral "solutions" could be readily translated into political policy...

...At other times Acheson acted in political terms as a realist and, as Chace writes, was "relentlessly pragmatic...

...policies during the cold war...

...Acheson himself believed strongly that "What may be quite proper and moral for a private citizen...often, and rightly, is condemned if done when he assumes legislative or executive powers of government...

...Acheson developed close ties with Truman, both political and personal, at a time when the United States was emerging as a great power on an international scene whose new contours were taking shape in ways that no political leader could have anticipated...

...Asia plays a greater part in an increasingly interdependent global economy and affects our own...

...If Acheson could not himself always discern the moral principles on which his decisions rested, he could draw upon them...

...Commonweal 2 3 October 23, 1998 knew that he would be asked for his reaction...

...However, as Chace emphasizes, even taking into account his failures or questionable policies, his achievements remain monumental...

...In political, economic, and military terms the United States is, in this new world, the strongest country there is...

...The book delights as much for its intellectual play of ideas as for its sensuous, if at times repetitive, rhetorical display...

...John Esposito, Moderator...

...In the simplest terms he was a man of character who trusted himself and could be trusted...

...He was frequently called back from a private life he enjoyed, even though he missed the excitement of participating in high events, to offer advice and judgment to presidents up to and including even Richard Nixon who, years earlier, had derided what he termed Acheson's "Cowardly College of Communist Containment...

...Chace makes his case persuasively by reporting on and analyzing the structures that Acheson helped to build as an active participant and sometimes architect...

...His friend Archibald MacLeish said that during this period Acheson's intellectual arrogance became a real strength...

...In that sense, he also bore testimony to the fact that it is better and more difficult to practice statecraft--the right ordering of policy--than to define it...

...What formed the bedrock of his character...

...Following a talented theologian in the skillful exercise of her craft generates genuine excitement...

...Thursday, December 10, 1998 at 8 P.M.: Human Rights and Religious Intolerance Dr...

...To achieve many of his international goals Acheson had to persuade, cajole, and push foreign leaders with strong and varied personalities who had themselves to cope with the radically altered fortunes of their countries...

...The times called for new vision, new initiatives, new and difficult policy decisions...

...The Soviet empire is no more and socialism as an ideology has been discredited...

...As the United States tentatively makes its way in the post-cold war world, many of the institutions for which Acheson is responsible are still in place but are no longer adequate to present needs...

...Like his mother, with whom he was very close, Acheson was an independent spirit, and from his minister father he learned what it means to be decent and civilized...

...and J. Michael Stebbins, recent Fellow of the Woodstock Theological Center...

...and the Truman Doctrine, devised to contain Soviet advances into the Mediterranean area...

...It has opportunities and obligations commensurate with its great strength...

...Friends of God and Prophets is just such a faith-filled and critical reappropriation that seeks to disclose the symboI's "liberating meaning for today...

...Consider: Acheson was a close friend of Hiss's brother Donald but not of Alger, and he personally believed that Hiss's testimony "did not add up...

...These questions are not easy to answer and one must tread carefully here...

...Two Additional Panels Wilt Complete This Series: Thursday, February 4, 1999 at 8 P.M.: Human Rights and United States Social Policy Thursday, April 8, 1999 at 8 P.M.: Catholic Commitment and Social Action...

...Acheson forces one to conclude that we would be fortunate indeed if, thus historically challenged, we could produce leaders with the competence and character of Harry Truman and Dean Acheson...

...Ignatius Loyola 980 Park Avenue ~ New York, New York ~ 212/288-3588 Thursday, November 5, 1998 at 8 P.M.: Contemporary Human Rights Dr...