Acheson: The Secretary of State Who Created the American World

The blazing career of Dean Acheson (1893-1971), American statesman, secretary of state under Truman and political pragmatist par excellence, is vibrantly brought to life against the tumult of a rapidly changing political arena in this superbly written and erudite biography. The son of a Conn. Episcopalian clergyman, the obstreperous Acheson attended Groton (where he finished last in his class), then Yale College and Harvard Law School, and joined the Navy for the duration of WWI. After clerking for Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, Acheson, a staunch Democrat, entered government under the New Deal, becoming undersecretary of the Treasury in 1933. Though a legal dispute with FDR about the pricing of gold led to his resignation, he lobbied for FDR's reelection, worked for the State Department during the war and was appointed undersecretary of state by Truman, becoming instrumental in the implementation of both the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. Following Truman's upset reelection in 1948, he was named secretary of state, a job consumed by crisis: the creation of NATO, the Communist takeover of mainland China and the beginning of the Korean War. Leaving office in 1953 he became a senior statesman, urging JFK to appoint Dean Rusk as head of the State Department (which he came to regret), taking a hawkish stance on the Cuban missile crisis and advising LBJ on Vietnam, laying the foundations, Chace writes, ""for the American predominance at the end of the 20th century."" A professor at Bard College, Chace (The Consequences of Peace) commands this broad historical canvas--which includes vivid portraits of FDR, Truman, Adlai Stevenson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Archibald MacLeish and Cole Porter--with an expert hand.(Aug.)