Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating - and will teach you how much you don't know
Review: A brief objective description of the book: Dean Acheson was Harry Truman's Secretary of State. In that role, he was instrumental in setting the tone and direction of our foreign policy, especially toward the Communist bloc, at the very beginning of the post World War II era [hence the title of the book]. This book is his memoir of the years he spent in the State Department. He discusses how decisions were reached and how the policies were implemented. Acheson was an articulate and engaging writer, but only people interested in the subject of cold war foreign policy are likely to enjoy reading all the way through this book. If you are such a person, I expect you'll find the book captivating and brilliant.

But here's how the book affected me personally: Like most people interested in politics, I always held fiercely to my opinions about what we should have done or shouldn't have done in our cold war foreign policy. I listened to or read political speeches by George McGovern, Jesse Helms, Henry Wallace, Joe McCarthy, and everyone in between. But it was only when I read this book [and then followed it by reading "Diplomacy" by Henry Kissinger - another excellent book] that I realized that for decades I had been spewing forth opinions without knowing what I was talking about. Acheson does a wonderful job at describing the considerations that had to be taken into account before coming to conclusions on the many critical issues that faced the U.S. in those years, and he really opened my eyes.

It wasn't that Acheson's book taught me that I was wrong about any one particular issue. I didn't come away feeling that I had been too "hawkish" or too "dovish" about anything. I simply realized that every foreign policy decision is far more intricate, with many more variables and many more potential consequences to every decision, than I had ever understood before.

Acheson's book may be grist for debates among cold war ideologues. They may argue till kingdom come that if Acheson hadn't done this or said that, then such-and-such would never have happened. Some people will say that if Acheson had been nicer to poor old Joe Stalin, then Stalin would have been nicer to us. Some will say that if Acheson hadn't been so accommodating and naive, we could have destroyed the communist conspiracy before it ever got off the ground. My own feeling is that both groups are wrong, but that's beside the point. The important point is that those endless public debates between the hawks and the doves are almost criminally superficial. Almost never do we hear a speech or read an article that comes close to describing the full range of options in any major decision, along with a description of all the possible ramifications of one alternative or another.

The main thing I learned from reading this book was the extent of my own ignorance. And perhaps that's the beginning of wisdom.

Rating:
Summary: An essential book for understanding the cold war
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: An essential book for understanding the cold war
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Great Story from a Great Man!
Review: Dean Acheson, one of "The Wise Men" who crafted foreign policy from Truman to Johnson, was a great American. I assume it could be debated just how correct our Cold War policy was, but we're all still here to debate the point so that in itself says volumes. President Truman was wise indeed for the trust and extreme confidence that he placed in Dean Acheson. Great reading!

Rating:
Summary: Insomniac's delight
Review: Dean Acheson, who was Secretary of State in the Truman Administration, has written an outstanding autobiography---one that deserved the Pulitzer Prize, which he received in 1970. In Present at the Creation, we receive the 'inside scope' on the most serious issues of Acheson's day: the agreement to form NATO, the war in Korea, the removal of General MacArthur, and so on. While providing essential historical information, too, Acheson writes lucidly, presenting his story in a prose that reads like a novel, only (in this instance) a novel that actually happened. This is an excellent book, one I highly recommend.

Rating:
Summary: An Architect of Freedom
Review: 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:
Summary: the best book ive ever read
Review: 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:
Summary: If you liked McCullough's "Truman..."
Review: McCullough's "Truman" taught many of us about the beginnings of the cold war and the nuclear age. If this book isn't as "entertaining" as McCullough's book about Harry Truman (not many writers are as entertaining as David McCullough) it is certainly a "must read" if you want to fully grasp what Harry Truman's presidency was all about, the gravity of the problems it faced, and how cold war policies came into being. Also the "creation" of NATO - a subject quite relevant nowadays. Acheson was indeed a marvelous writer, and this work offers tremendous insight into what went on "at the creation" of Cold War politics. Acheson was a brilliant individual (Truman certainly recognized the combination of political talent and genuine humanity when he saw it). Acheson withstood a lot absolute trash thrown at him by McCarthy and his cohorts, ironically so, since it was Truman's original policies that opened the door to that sort of thing. But survive it all he did, (and so did we) and as a result posterity has lots of good things to say about this wonderfully creative and far-sighted patriot. This book fills in many of the details that "Truman" simply didn't have room for, a biography written by a man we learned far to little about in school and college.