UPI Sumter. Acheson is aware of the ar- gument, and like the careful lawyer he is, presents a formidable brief for the de- fense. Soviet troops had occupied the northern provinces of Iran; to force them out strong American pressure was needed. The Truman Doctrine, which combined military and economic aid, was developed only to counter Soviet de- signs upon the faltering regimes of Greece and Turkey. To restore a Eu- rope close to economic disintegration, the Marshall Plan was the only pos- sible remedy. Summing up the immediate results of postwar policy, Acheson writes: "Our efforts for the most part left conditions better than when we found them." The man most responsible, in Acheson's view, was Harry Truman, "the captain with the mighty heart." Acheson is not blind to his chiefs faults. Truman, he ad- mits, was guided more by feeling than by reason. His most provocative ex- ample is Truman's help in founding the state of Israel, a policy that Ach- eson felt would produce enduring chaos in the Middle East. Elsewhere, he ex- DEAN ACHESON ON S.S. "INDEPENDENCE" tols the ex-President's judgment, order- New perspectives. liness of mind and ability to make a dpcision and stick to it. "If he was not Privileged Heirlooms a great man," remarks Acheson, "he was the greatest little man the author PRESENT AT THE CREATION by Dean knew anything about." Acheson. 798 pages. W. W. Norton. While Acheson did not lack for en- $12.50 to Dec. 31, then $15. emies, his chief villain is not Joseph Mc- Carthy, who constantly barked at his Twenty years ago, only a Metternich heels during the last three years of the might have appreciated Dean Acheson, Truman Administration. The aristocratic that rarest of all Americans, the model Secretary dismisses McCarthy as a "lazy, diplomat. Excessively sharp of mind and small-town bully, without sustaining pur- tongue—and not at all afraid to show pose." Acheson's real bete noire is Doug- the biting edge of either—Acheson was las MacArthur, whose gigantic ego, he not destined for public popularity as asserts, turned victory into stalemate Harry Truman's Secretary of State, par- after the Inchon landing in Korea and ticularly in an era when careers could transformed a relatively small-scale ac- be smashed overnight by little more tion into a debilitating war. So certain than whispered innuendoes of "Com- was MacArthur of his own genius and in- munist" or "left-wing" sympathies. Pres- vulnerability, says Acheson, that the gen- ent confusions and elapsed time, how- eral, ignoring warnings from Washing- ever, have created new perspectives on ton, advanced toward Manchuria and the diplomatic problems and achieve- an almost predictable Chinese military ments of the Truman Administration. response. When Chinese troops swarmed When the guns grew silent in 1945, across the Yalu River, the General was much of the world had been torn apart. shattered. Yet "what had been shat- "Only slowly did it dawn upon us," tered," says Acheson, "was MacArthur's writes Acheson in this, the second vol- dream, the product of his own hubris. ume of his memoirs (1941-1953), "that Unfortunately the Eighth Army was to the whole world structure and order be pretty well shattered also." that we had inherited from the nine- Scoundrels and Piss-Ants. Though the teenth century was gone and that the former Secretary writes well, he also struggle to replace it would be directed writes at great length, not neglecting from two bitterly opposed and ideo- even the war period when, as Assistant logically irreconcilable power centers." Secretary, he was told "almost nothing" The title of the book is thus not a rhe- about the major decisions that guided torical fancy. As Under Secretary (1945- 1947) and later Secretary of State U.S. policy. But many of his stories deserve the (1949-1953), he was present at the cre- place of privileged heirlooms. It is worth ation of a new world order—and had a nodding through innumerable Foreign considerable role in its formation. Ministers' conferences to learn also that New Left and revisionist historians on the day of Pearl Harbor, Secretary have argued in recent years that, in of State Cordell Hull, a decorous gen- fact, Acheson and Truman fired the tleman from Tennessee, so far forgot opening shots of the cold war, that himself as to inform the departing Jap- such a policy as the Truman Doctrine anese envoys that they were nothing bet- was the equivalent of bombarding Fort ter than "scoundrels and piss-ants." TIME, NOVEMBER 7, 1969 TIME, NOVEMBER 7, 1969