DEAN ACHESON AND THE MAKING OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY Also l7y Douglas Brinkley DEAN ACHESON: THE COLD WAR YEARS 1953-1971 DRIVEN PATRIOT: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JAMES V. FORRESTAL (with Townsend Hoopes) JEAN MONNET: THE PATH TO EUROPEAN UNITY (coedited with Clifford Hackett) Dean Acheson and the Making of U.S. Foreign Policy Edited by Douglas Brinkley Assistant Professor of History Hofstra University palgrave macmillan ©Douglas Brinkley 1993 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1993 978-0-333-56735-7 All rights reseiVed. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1993 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-1-349-22613-9 ISBN 978-1-349-22611-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-22611-5 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. To Alice Acheson - a woman of uncommon courage, talent and intellect Contents Preface IX Introduction XXI Paul H. Nitze Notes on Contributors xxiv 1. The Rise and Fall of Economic Diplomacy: 1 Dean Acheson and the Marshall Plan Michael J Hogan 2. Dean Acheson and the Atlantic Community 28 Lawrence S. Kaplan 3. Acheson, the Bomb, and the Cold War 55 Robert L. Messer 4. Loy Henderson, Dean Acheson and the Origins of the Truman Doctrine 73 Bruce R Kuniholm 5. China's Place in the Cold War: the Acheson Plan 109 Nancy Bemkopf Tucker 6. Dean Acheson and the Japanese Peace Treaty 133 Takeshi Igarashi 7. Frustrating the Kremlin Design: Acheson and NSC 68 159 Steven L. Rearden 8. Negotiating from Strength: Acheson, the Russians and American Power 176 Melvyn P. Leffler 9. Marshall and Acheson: the State Department Years, 1945-1949 211 Forrest C. Pogue Vll viii Contents 10. Foreign Economic Policy in Dean Acheson's Time and Ours 233 WiUiam Diebold Dean Acheson 189~1971: A Biographical Sketch 256 Select Bibliography 258 Index 265 Preface The essays comprising Dean Acheson and the Making of U.S. Foreign Policy grew out of a two-day conference held in April 1989 to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Dean Acheson's swearing-in as Harry Truman's Secretary of State. The conference presentations were commissioned from distin­ guished historians already working on some aspect of the Truman era and then revised for publication. Those laboring in the field of post World War II diplomatic history enjoy a peculiar circumstance that, say, Gibbon writing on the Roman Empire, did not: namely, important participants are still around to enrich, enliven, refine, and critique the historian's work product. Thus one purpose of this preface is to convey this environment of 'interactive history'. Also, the conference or­ ganizers had concerns broader than the past and left room to follow historical threads to their contemporary tapestry. And so this preface also aims at placing the essays in the broader sweep of the conference itself. The Acheson conference was held in Washington, DC, under the auspices of the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) of Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced Inter­ national Studies (SAIS). The conference was clearly congruent with FPI's mission as an integral part of SAIS: to unite the worlds of scholarship and public affairs in search of realistic answers to contemporary problems facing the United States. Since FPI' s founding in 1980, scores of policymakers, scholars, business executives, members of Congress, diplomats, and jour­ nalists have participated in FPI seminars and roundtables, policy study groups, and international conferences. In addition to books and monographs on topical issues of US foreign policy, FPI publishes The SA/S Review, a journal of international affairs; FPI Policy Consensus Reports, the recommendations of leading Americans on vital issues; FPI Case Studies of diplomatic nego­ tiations; and the SAIS Energy Papers. When David C. Acheson proposed to SAIS Dean George Packard holding a conference to commemorate his father's ix X Preface appointment as Secretary of State, Packard seized the opportu­ nity. Mter all, Acheson and his friends Paul Nitze and Christian Herter had been 'present at the creation' of SAIS during World War II. Acheson, Herter and Nitze had seen a need to create a Washington-based graduate school that sought new methods to prepare men and women to cope with the international respon­ sibilities that would be thrust upon the United States in the postwar world. As Packard said at the conference opening: 'We do not require any special anniversary at SAIS to honor Dean Acheson. By that I mean his ideas and works are so embedded in our curriculum on US foreign policy in the post-World War II period that he is studied by graduate students here almost every day as a matter of basic literacy in international affairs.' Today, more than 5,000 SAIS graduates work in 120 countries. The Achesonian connection is further cemented in that SAIS's director of European Studies is the eminent Professor David Calleo, holder of the distinguished Dean Acheson chair. Once Packard and Acheson agreed on SAIS as the proper venue to evaluate Dean Acheson's foreign policymaking from both historical and contemporary vantage points, the planning commenced. Johns Hopkins University President Steven Muller captured the spirit of the event in his opening remarks: 'The purpose of this conference is ambitious, namely to remember the past in such a way as to improve our ability to understand the present and imagine the future.' The conference logistics Packard turned over to the able hands of then FPI Executive Director Simon Serfaty and his extraordinary conference coordinator Joan H. Kloepfer. Anyone involved with the conference had to be impressed with their efficient professionalism. David Acheson's first step in transforming the conference from an idea to a reality was to enlist four of his father's close friends and working associates to help in the planning and to put together a sponsoring committee. Paul H. Nitze was the obvious choice for honorary chairman. As head of the State Department's Policy Planning staff from 1950-3, Nitze worked closely with Acheson on an array of national security issues. When Acheson stepped down as Secretary of State, Nitze con­ tinued to meet with his former boss once a week so he could 'tap his wisdom even when he was not in government'. Unfor­ tunately, a week before the conference Nitze was thrown from Preface XI his horse while riding at his Maryland farm, breaking a hip. Hospitalized, he was unable to attend but sent an intimate letter which sketched a warm remembrance of Dean Acheson and his historic role in the postwar era: 'The happiest and most productive years of my life were those from 1947 to January 1953, when I was among those working closely with Dean and creating the modern world'. Without Nitze's active support the conference would not have been possible. When David Acheson needed a chairman to head the spon­ soring committee, he turned to George C. McGhee. Known throughout Washington as an astute observer of the interna­ tional scene, McGhee was Coordinator for Aid to Greece and Turkey (1947-9), Special Assistant to the Secretary of State ( 1949), Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany ( 1963- 8), and Ambassador at Large ( 1968-9). As conference chair­ man he led the fundraising drive. He also generously shared his foreign policy insights during a roundtable discussion on US­ Soviet relations during the Cold War. Two of Dean Acheson's most treasured friends served as conference vice-chairmen: Lucius D. Battle and J. Robert Schaetzel. Battle, as a young Special Assistant to Acheson from 1949 to 1953, formed a close personal relationship with his boss during those years. As Acheson himself wrote in Present at the Creation: 'l shall always be deeply grateful to Carl Humelsine for recommending a tall, good-looking Floridian, Lucius D. Battle, then serving on the Canadian desk, as meeting my require­ ments [for a personal assistant] by being a bachelor, bright, pleasant, knowledgeable about the Department, energetic, and responsible. No better choice could have been made.' Follow­ ing the Truman years Battle went on to a stellar diplomatic career of his own: Ambassador to the United Arab Republic (1964-7); Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (1967-8); first Chairman of the Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute ( 1980-4); and he is at present President of the Middle East Institute. He proved to be an indispensable vice-chairman, helping to set-up the conference agenda, and participating himself on two panels. The other vice-chairman, J. Robert Schaetzel, was a key organizer of the event. Schaetzel, who was Special Assistant to the Director of the Office of International Trade Policy, De­ partment of State (1945-50), Special Assistant to the Assistant xii Preface Secretary of State for Economic Affairs ( 1950-4), and Ambassa­ dor to the European Community (1966-72), forged a close relationship with Dean Acheson in the 1960s.