Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department [Paperback]

Dean Acheson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 1987

With deft portraits of many world figures, Dean Acheson analyzes the processes of policy making, the necessity for decision, and the role of power and initiative in matters of state.

Acheson (1893–1971) was not only present at the creation of the postwar world, he was one of its chief architects. He joined the Department of State in 1941 as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and, with brief intermissions, was continuously involved until 1953, when he left office as Secretary of State at the end of the Truman years.

Throughout that time Acheson's was one of the most influential minds and strongest wills at work. It was a period that included World War II, the reconstruction of Europe, the Korean War, the development of nuclear power, the formation of the United Nations and NATO. It involved him at close quarters with a cast that starred Truman, Roosevelt, Churchill, de Gaulle, Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Attlee, Eden Bevin, Schuman, Dulles, de Gasperi, Adenauer, Yoshida, Vishinsky, and Molotov.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Dean Acheson joined the U.S. Department of State in 1941 as an assistant secretary for economic affairs. Shortly after the end of World War II, he attempted to resign, but was persuaded to come back as under secretary of state; Harry Truman eventually rewarded Acheson's loyalty by picking him to run the State Department during his second term (1949 to 1953).

"The period covered in this book was one of great obscurity to those who lived through it," Acheson wrote at the beginning of his memoirs, first published in 1969. "The period was marked by the disappearance of world powers and empires ... and from this wreckage emerged a multiplicity of states, most of them new, all of them largely underdeveloped politically and economically. Overshadowing all loomed two dangers to all--the Soviet Union's new-found power and expansive imperialism, and the development of nuclear weapons." Present at the Creation is a densely detailed account of Acheson's diplomatic career, delineated in intricately eloquent prose. Going over the origins of the cold war--the drawing of lines among the superpowers in Europe, the conflict in Korea--Acheson discusses how he and his colleagues came to realize "that the whole world structure and order that we had inherited from the nineteenth century was gone," and that the old methods of foreign policy would no longer apply. Among the accolades Acheson garnered for his candid self-assessment was the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for history.

Review

“The passing decades confirm Dean Acheson's place as the clearest thinking, most effective Secretary of State of the twentieth century. As a writer he has no equal since Thomas Jefferson first occupied the office in the eighteenth century.” (Gaddis Smith, Yale University)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 848 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (September 17, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393304124
• ISBN-13: 978-0393304121
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.6 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #370,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 63 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating - and will teach you how much you don't know February 16, 2001

By Stan Vernooy

Format:Hardcover

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.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding: Autobiography As It Should Be Written January 10, 1999

By [e-mail]

Format:Paperback

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.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The one best book to read on the origins of the Cold War March 18, 1997

By A Customer

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

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?