Acheson's Apologia

...Even more troubling is his naive but loyal conclusion: Truman "never took or refused to take a step in our foreign relations to benefit his or his Party's futures...

...For many historians, however, the origins of the war remain unclear: Perhaps the attack was planned by the North Koreans in response to Syngman Rhee's threats of an attack on the North, or perhaps it was inspired by the Soviets because they feared the forthcoming peace treaty with Japan...

...In addition, Acheson never acknowledges that Secretary of State James F. Byrnes wished to use the atomic bomb as an "implied threat" with the Soviets in postwar negotiations and that he opposed international control of atomic energy in 1945...

...For example, Acheson does not analyze the origins of the Cold War...

...Often shunning analysis, he asserts (or comfortably narrates) as facts the issues now much in dispute...

...Perhaps partly because he overlooks this "atomic diplomacy," Acheson cannot understand why the Soviet Union in 1946 rejected the much-heralded Baruch plan for international control of atomic energy, which would have guaranteed the American nuclear monopoly for a number of years and permitted foreign observers to penetrate Soviet secrecy, upon which she believed her security depended...

...As the liberal faith crumbled in the Sixties, however, Truman's Administration and Acheson came under harsh criticism for new reasons—the creation of dangerous and unnecessary alliances, opposition to revolutions, and substantial responsibility for the Cold War...

...Presented as a memoir and conceived to justify a particular view of the past, Acheson employs a tactic available to memoirists: He brushes aside his enemies of the period (such as Senator Joseph McCarthy and his supporters) but refuses to tilt against, or even to acknowledge, most later challenging interpretations and criticisms...

...Unlike in personality, education, and intellectual ability, the former haberdasher and dirt farmer who had hobnobbed with Kansas City's notorious Boss Pendergast, and the former law clerk for U.S...

...Unwilling to acknowledge that Greece was in the throes of a revolution against a corrupt and oppressive monarchy, he still comfortably assumes, contrary to the public revelations by Milovan Djilas in Conversations with Stalin, that the upheaval was Soviet-directed, part of a scheme for Soviet expansion...

...Sidestepping the first interpretation, he also dismisses fear of the peace treaty as the explanation of possible Soviet behavior...

...Unfortunately Truman's Secretary of State has failed to recall the earlier rumors about a settlement and earlier Soviet expression of fears about a U.S.-Japanese rapprochement, as well as Truman's statement five weeks before the Korean war that negotiations on the treaty "won't be too far off...

...To those who recall or study the Administration's policies of 1945-48 and the abrupt flip-flop just before the election in an effort to capture needed Jewish votes, Acheson's interpretation (of a "deep conviction") is unconvincing...

...Apparently responding to these criticisms, Acheson reversed his earlier decision not to write another book of memoirs beyond Morning and Noon (1965), which ended in 1941 when he became Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs...

...This he would have regarded as false to the great office that he venerated...

...Acheson is more effective in disposing of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the so-called "primitives" (his word) who attacked his judgment, his loyalty, and his policies...

...As a result, he does not explain why the Administration failed to consult adequately with the GOP on Asian affairs or to prepare the nation for the "loss" of China...

...Better than the book in revealing this shared attitude is the tale Acheson recently told of a meeting in Truman's office with J. Robert Oppenheimer, "father" of the atomic bomb, "who was wringing his hands and said: T have blood on my hands.' " Truman later told Acheson, "Don't ever bring that damn fool in here again...

...When the Republicans demanded his dismissal, Truman defied them, but Democratic Congressmen would not oppose the public wrath to defend the beleagured Secretary...

...The elements of self-justification and objectivity could not be excluded...

...In treating Truman's policies toward a homeland for the Jews, Acheson notes his only disagreement on foreign policy with the President: The Secretary, unlike the President, did not accept the Zionist solution to the problem of displaced Jews in Europe...

...Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis and member of the Yale Corporation who had presided at the prestigious Washington law firm of Covington and Burling were bound together by a common conception of American mission, an uncommon respect for action and decisiveness, and a firm commitment to mutual loyalty...

...This kind of sniveling makes me sick...

...I did...

...Acheson concluded, "It makes me slightly sick as well...

...In that book he explained that because his experience in the war and postwar years meant greater responsibility and involvement —particularly as Under Secretary (1945-47) and Secretary (1949-53) — his "detachment and objectivity [in discussing this period] would become suspect...

...Acheson smugly declares that the advocates of this explanation (including George Kennan) are wrong, for the attack preceded by three fnonths the American decision to negotiate a peace treaty...

...But now, living in a nation wracked by doubt and division, in which he laments the disillusionment, particularly among the young, he is compelled, in effect, to defend his own past, and in so doing he offers his own view of the years between 1941 and 1953— "a tale of large conceptions, great achievements, and some failures...

...In discussing the Korean War, Acheson is still positive that the attack was instigated by the Soviet Union as part of its strategy of aggression and expansion...

...But even on this subject he is a skilled advocate who misunderstands Senator Robert Taft's criticisms and again bypasses unpleasant questions...

...Beyond the White House, Acheson's support came primarily from those liberals who endorsed the policies that the Truman Administration followed and the Secretary symbolized ¦—collective security and troops in Europe, limited war in Asia, a renewed military build-up, and "negotiations from strength...

...This strategy shapes the questions he asks as well as those he sidesteps...

...In effect, his technique is skilled and subtle advocacy: He seldom argues a case, he simply asserts it as the reasonable, indeed as the self-evident, interpretation...

...and by mangling the events involving the abrupt termination of Lend-Lease to Russia in May, 1945, Acheson manages to evade two issues which most "revisionist" historians emphasize in their analysis of the Cold War...

...As a result, the gap between the figure portrayed in the book and the actual man is almost as great as the gap between his view of the Truman Administration and the record of its actions...

...Acheson is more successful in evoking the mutual admiration and friendship between himself and the President...

...In explaining the Truman Doctrine of March, 1947, Acheson again employs the same techniques—assertion and evasion of other arguments...

...It is in Poland, he declares, that the Soviets started the Cold War, but he never bothers to look closely at the Yalta agreement on Poland ("susceptible of two interpretations," according to Admiral William Leahy and Franklin D. Roosevelt), which Truman and others wrongly concluded the Soviets violated...

...That story, more than the book, discloses Acheson's moral intolerance and reveals his personality and values...

...Each had contempt for those men of state who agonize about responsibility, who are torn by ambivalence, who in Acheson's words are "beset by the second thoughts and self doubt and that most enfeebling of emotions, regret...

...By failing to consider such matters, he avoids recognizing the Administration's own responsibility for encouraging a belief in national omnipotence which the right wing did exploit...

...He didn't set off that bomb...

...And by neglecting the loan made to the U.S.S.R...

...Reviewed by Barton J. Bernstein Two decades ago, Dean Acheson, then Harry Truman's fourth Secretary of State, was viciously attacked by the Right for "losing" China, coddling Communists, and sponsoring "Commie-symp," no-win policies...

...Instead, he asserts that the Soviet Union could not be trusted and that it was prepared to expand by subversion and aggression...

...Dedicating Present at the Creation to Truman ("the captain with the mighty heart"), Acheson celebrates the capacity of the President and his Administration to protect and maintain the free world in the face of what the Secretary still believes was Soviet malevolence, subversion, and aggression...

...Painted in muted tones in the book, the brilliant, learned, and overbearing attorney never allows the reader more than a peek at the intellectual arrogance and impatience that long intimidated subordinates and once enraged Congressmen and offended citizens...

...According iu Acheson, Truman had a firm commitment to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, a "deep conviction" that had been implanted largely by the President's friend and partner in his early, unsuccessful haberdashery, Eddie Jacobson, a passionate Zionist...