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Title: Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department by Dean Acheson ISBN: 0-393-30412-4 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 July, 1987 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.62 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: the best book ive ever read
Comment: I'm a 16 year old sophmore in high school and have an interest in all history, especially history that took place during the 1930's to around 1965. this book gave very deep and detailed insight into the inerworkings of the stae department after world war 2, and displayed the type of men it took to rebuild governments around the world into well oiled democratic machines. i would HIGHLY reccomend this book to anyone interested in learning a great deal about the state department under truman and acheson, as well as a person just interested in a good read.
Rating: 5
Summary: An Architect of Freedom
Comment: Despite his reputation as a blue-blooded aristocrat with a Wasp pedigree and a Yale education, the title Dean Acheson selected for his autobiography of his busy and memorable State Department years demonstrates an abiding humility. Dean Acheson was far more than "Present at the Creation"; he was an architect in creating some of the most vitally needed foreign policy initiatives in the nation's history.
In the world of statecraft time and circumstances generate opportunities for greatness. So it was with Acheson. Serving as an Under Secretary of State under General George C. Marshall and later as Secretary of State, both in the adiministration of President Harry Truman, Acheson was tapped to deliver the speech that familiarized Americans with what would become the Marshall Plan, an economic package which revitalized Europe during a bleak period following World War Two, helping a great continent get back on its feet and thwarting Soviet expansion plans in the process.
Acheson was also a principal architect of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which provided the kind of central military focus and comradeship needed at a time when Russian expansionism threatened to engulf the free world. Acheson was also intimately involved with the Truman Doctrine, which supplied Greece and Turkey with needed funds in the wake of a direct military threat from the Soviet Union. As Secretary of State it was Acheson who worked in harmony with President Truman to launch a United Nations coaliation action headed by the United States to defeat Communist aggression when South Korea was attacked by North Korea.
Acheson puts the reader in the context of the period when the Cold War bristled at its hottest level of intensity, describing the policies designed to thwart Soviet world objectives as well as delineating the individuals who created and implemented them.
William Hare
Rating: 5
Summary: An essential book for understanding the cold war
Comment: Dean Acheson's memoir is devoted almost entirely to his service in the State Department following the end of the Second World War. He provides almost no details about his background or private life, and covers his pre-war career in a few chapters. This allows him to concentrate on what really matters, his history of post-war foreign relations.
Acheson truly was "Present at the Creation" in that he participated in the creation of the postwar structure designed to contain communism after Stalin installed puppet goverments in Eastern Europe. During his tenure, he was criticized from the left for being too hawkish, and from the right as being either a communist or a communist sympathizer. The latter charges were particularly ridiculous; Acheson had no illusions about the Soviet Union, but he also had no intention to start World War III if it could be avoided.
Some will find the details of how agreements were reached with our allies tedious. However, these details are essential to understanding the limitations under which Acheson worked. He rightly viewed it essential to strive to revive Western Europe, and to treat these countries as allies, not puppets. The result of this foresight was NATO, and the decades-long consensus amoung Western Europe and the United States concerning how to deal with the Soviets.
Acheson was highly valued by Truman, and it is easy to see why. In addition to being intelligent and experienced in foreign affairs, Acheson (like Truman) was a great believer in loyalty. Thus, when Truman returned to Washington, Acheson was the only cabinet member to meet him at the train station, a gesture Truman never forgot. Of course, Acheson's loyalty did cause to make some unfortunate statements, such as when he said he would not turn his back on Alger Hiss, whom he had known briefly in the State Department (Acheson knew Hiss's brother Donald much better).
To use a term from the 1960s, Acheson was very much a man of the Establishment. He went to the best schools, was a Supreme Court clerk, and was a partner in a prominent law firm when he was not working for the Government. This background affects his prose style, which shows some degree of excessive conviction that he was almost always right, and shows no sign of self-doubt. For all of that, I found the book quite readable, and important to anyone interested in postwar history.
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Title: The WISE MEN : Six Friends and the World They Made by Walter Isaacson, Evan Thomas ISBN: 0684837714 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 04 June, 1997 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: George F. Kennan and the Origins of Containment, 1944-1946: The Kennan-Lukacs Correspondence by George F. Kennan, John Lukacs ISBN: 0826211097 Publisher: University of Missouri Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World by James Chace ISBN: 0674000811 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $18.50 |
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Title: American Diplomacy by George Frost Kennan ISBN: 0226431479 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1985 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: George F. Kennan: Memoirs 1925-1950 (George F. Kennan Memoirs) by George Frost Kennan ISBN: 0394716248 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1983 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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