Presidents and their Statesmen

...American progress during that century, gained amid limitless opportunities and with a minimum of conflict and coercion, substantiated the illusion that force was giving way to consensus in the resolving of human problems...

...It covered the tenures of 46 men charged with the relevant responsibility from pre-Constitution times through the service of Charles Evans Hughes (1921-25...

...And Hans Morgenthau, digressing from his own essay on Dulles, describes Acheson as "a Secretary of State intellectually at least as well equipped as any of his predecessors since John Quincy Adams, one of the best Secretaries of State the United States has ever had...

...A passing problem of stability in Nicaragua in the 1920s gets 15 times the lineage as the events surrounding the Japanese Peace Treaty...

...Yet it was within the time of this combination that relationships between a Secretary of State and the nation's political forces and the public reached their most difficult phase — a circumstance which Graebner and Morgenthau discuss with great concern and insight...

...This rejection of the element of force as the basis of national or international politics conformed completely to the prevailing optimism of the age...

...From 1898 on, Graebner continues, "the United States came to view itself as an innocent nation...

...In 1944, Acheson was placed in charge of the State Department's concerns at the Capitol...

...He asked what they were, caught the essence of Truman's response, and worked it into a serviceable draft...

...In his opinion, a properly proportioned view of national interest and of the relation between diplomatic means and ends characterized the conduct of U.S...

...policy during the nation's earlier years...

...It carries the account up through the terms of Frank Kellogg, Henry L. Stimson, Cordell Hull, Edward R. Stettinius Jr., James F Byrnes, George C. Marshall and Dean Acheson, concluding with John Foster Dulles...

...But moral purpose, operating in a supposedly rational world, created limitless expectations for if national intent, at least in theory, was directed at the achievement of universal freedom, the assurance of success lay in the simple desire of men to be free...

...The reader will inevitably compare the successes of the 14 careers examined by Graebner and his 13 scholarly colleagues in this venture...

...This method of recording diplomatic history inevitably makes for disproportions...

...According to the accounts in The Uncertain Tradition, the laurel quite clearly goes to Dean Acheson, whom Graebner describes as "idealistic, puritanical, sarcastic, intense, and even intolerant," though "he could be equally cynical, earthy, humorous, relaxed and patient...

...On the first morning after taking over the Presidency, he had Acheson called over to help draft a Presidential speech to the American public...

...Their rapport was established on this basis...

...The ratio of space to time, for example, is two pages for each month in office in the case of Stettinius as compared with two pages per year for Hull...

...The relationship endured...

...Morgenthau's account of how John Foster Dulles applied this lesson and how it affected his conduct in office is one of the most revealing aspects of the book...

...Throughout their years together, Acheson never questioned Truman's superior authority...

...On balance this is a useful book, well conceived and well executed...

...A thoughtful introductory essay by Professor Graebner dwells on the former theme...

...Graebner adds that "Acheson was aware of 'human limitations' in resolving the great conflicts in world affairs"—in this respect having "little in common with most of his 20th century predecessors...

...Graebner's account fails to explain how the Truman-Acheson relationship took hold...

...Thus, the book overlaps with the earlier work in respect to six men—John Hay, Elihu Root, Philander Knox, William Jennings Bryan, Robert Lansing and Hughes—who served during the first quarter of this century, and omits two others—Robert Bacon and Bainbridge Colby—of brief tenure and scant accomplishment...

...But such details are not of great importance...

...Reviewed by CHARLES BURTON MARSHALL Washington Center of Foreign Policy Research A history of United States foreign policy recounted through the careers of the heads of the foreign office was attempted 33 years ago in an ambitious 10-volume work edited by Samuel Flagg Bemis...

...The elements of uncertainty reflected in the title are two, both as yet unresolved...

...Theirs was a relationship in which the Secretary was recognized as master of his establishment while clearly maintaining his subordinate position to the President...

...Acheson's immediate view was that the thoughts for such an occasion should be the President's own...

...The second has to do with the relationship between the Secretary of State and his constitutional superior, the President, changing from one instance to another...

...He was not reluctant to tender advice, offer help and assume responsibility, but would not presume to substitute his own mind for his chief's...

...The combination of Secretary of State and President seemed to have worked best during the time of Acheson and Truman...

...Now the project has been tried anew in a book of more modest scope edited by Professor Norman Graebner of the University of Illinois...

...Not even the American democratic mission was any genuine challenge to the world order for the countries of Europe and Asia which thereafter seemed to be guilty of repressing freedom were always those which sought to upset the status quo.' Later he adds: "The past reliance on physical power, always a limited entity, had confined rather than expanded American ambition...

...The first concerns the changing degree of pertinence between prevailing American assumptions and the actualities of international relations...

...Truman, then a Senator heading an investigating committee concerned with the war effort, was favorably impressed with Acheson's helpfulness...

...After 1898, however, "What characterized the American outlook was not merely the assumption of omnipotence but the identification of that omnipotence less with physical power than with the peculiar qualities of American civilization itself...

...Thereafter, "American leadership could escape its dilemmas only by hasty improvisation which succeeded often in protecting the nation's interests but seldom in establishing its precepts...

...Nineteenth century rationalism had denied the essentially evil nature of society and had anticipated a rational world, free of conflict, oppression, tyranny, and other irrational uses of power...

...Acheson was moved up to Under Secretary before long and, in due course, to Secretary...

...The Uncertain Tradition's point of departure is the treaty closing our war with Spain 64 years ago...