Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

by Dean Acheson

Book Overview

"As autobiography (this book) is enthralling, as history indispensable, as a manual on government and diplomacy invaluable".--Wallace Carroll, New York Times Book Review. Photographs.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 039307448X
• ISBN13: 9780393074482
• Release Date: January 1969
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 798 Pages
• Weight: 2.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.8" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

An essential book for understanding the cold war

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.

Fascinating - and will teach you how much you don't know

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.

Outstanding: Autobiography As It Should Be Written

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.

The one best book to read on the origins of the Cold War

Dean Acheson was deputy and acting secretary of the Treasury under FDR in the early 1930s, assistant and then under secretary of State from 1941 until 1947, and secretary of State under Truman from 1949 until 1953. Only President Harry S. Truman and Secretary of State (and Defense) George C. Marshall (and, of course, Josef Vissarionovich Stalin, ne Dugashvili) had more to do with making the post-World War II world as we knew it. Acheson titled his memoirs--highly egocentrically, for he was a highly egocentric man, certain of his own righteousness, intelligence, and good judgment--"Present at the Creation." The reference is to the king Alfonso the Wise of Castile, who in the thirteenth century had ironically noted that had he been present at the creation, he could have given good some useful hints. Acheson was present at the creation of a new world--the post-World War II world--and he did much more than give a few hints. The U.S. post-WWII policy of engagement to spend tens of billions of dollars helping western Europe rebuild bore his imprint, as did the policy of economic and political "containment" of the Soviet Union that began with the 1947 Truman Doctrine. The U.S. post-Korean War policy of confrontation--that the U.S. would be willing to go toe-to-toe with the Soviet Union and its proxies in many different corners of the world, and would build up a military that could quickly project massive force anywhere in the globe (the policy of NSC-68)--was in many ways his invention. Present at the Creation is his self-assured justification of what he did and suffered, with blasts at his critics both on the left and on the right. He makes a very strong case for his (and his boss President Truman's) policies. And on finishing the book you wonder where are today's equals of Acheson in talent, in decisiveness, and in self-righteousness?