Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department PDF Author: Dean Acheson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324064609
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 858

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Book Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize 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.

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department PDF Author: Dean Acheson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324064609
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 858

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Book Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize 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.

Present at the Creation

Present at the Creation PDF Author: Dean Acheson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393304121
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 858

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Book Description
The author relates his experiences in the State Department during a period that witnessed World War II, European reconstruction, the Korean War and McCarthyism.

Acheson

Acheson PDF Author: James Chace
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9780684864822
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
Acheson is the first complete biography of the most important and controversial secretary of state of the twentieth century. More than any other of the renowned "Wise Men" who together proposed our vision of the world in the aftermath of World War II, Dean Acheson was the quintessential man of action. Drawing on Acheson family diaries and letters as well as recent revelations from Russian and Chinese archives, historian James Chace traces Acheson's remarkable life, from his days as a schoolboy at Groton and his carefree life at Yale to his work for President Franklin Roosevelt on international financial policy and his unique partnership with President Truman. Acheson was a housemate of Cole Porter's at Harvard Law School, a protégé of Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter's, a friend of poet Archibald MacLeish's, a key adviser to General George Marshall, and a confidant of Winston Churchill's. Serving as Truman's secretary of state from 1949 to 1953, he was indeed "present at the creation," as he entitled his memoirs. More than any other of Truman's powerful and glamorous advisers, Acheson conceived the shape of the postwar world and mastered the policies that ensured its birth and endurance. He was the driving force behind the Truman Doctrine to contain the Soviet Union's expansionist ambitions; the Marshall Plan to rebuild the shattered economies of Europe; and NATO, the military alliance that would bind Western Europe and the United States and keep the Soviet Union firmly behind the Iron Curtain until it collapsed. Chace corrects many misconceptions about Acheson's role in the Cold War. Acheson was not one of the original Cold Warriors. In 1945, willing to acknowledge Soviet concerns about its security, Acheson worked closely with Secretary of War Henry Stimson on a plan to share America's scientific information about atomic energy with Moscow in order to avert an arms race. It was only when Moscow made threatening demands on Turkey for bases in the Dardanelles that Acheson hardened his views toward the Soviet Union. Acheson's initial approach toward Communist China was similarly nonideological. He had little sympathy for Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists on Taiwan and, until the outbreak of the Korean War, held out hope that the United States would soon recognize Mao Zedong's regime as the legitimate government of China. Acheson's early pragmatism toward Moscow and Beijing, and his refusal to denounce Alger Hiss, a State Department colleague accused of being a Communist, earned him the enmity of the McCarthyites, who accused Acheson of having "lost" China and of sabotaging General Douglas MacArthur in Korea. Later, Acheson encouraged President Kennedy to stand firm against the Soviets in the Berlin Wall and Cuban missile crises. He headed a group of elder statesmen who advised President Johnson on the Vietnam War. When Acheson turned against the war, Johnson realized that domestic support for his policy had crumbled. Acheson is a masterful biography of a great statesman whose policies won the Cold War. It is also an important and dramatic work of history chronicling the momentous decisions, events, and fascinating personalities of the most critical decades of the American Century.

Affection and Trust

Affection and Trust PDF Author: Harry S. Truman
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803245262
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
In this collection, published for the first time, we follow Harry S. Truman and Dean Acheson, two giants of the post-World War II period, as they move from an official relationship to one of candor, humor, and personal expression. In these letters, spanning the years from when both were newly out of office until Acheson's death at age 78, we find them sharing the often surprising opinions, ideas, and feelings that the strictures of their offices had previously kept them from revealing. They felt a powerful need to keep in touch as they viewed with dismay what they considered to be the Eisenhower administration's fumbling of foreign affairs and the impact of Joseph McCarthy. After Kennedy won in 1960, they discussed Acheson's reluctant involvement in the Cuban missile crisis and the Allied position in Berlin--From publisher description.

Dean Acheson and the Creation of an American World Order

Dean Acheson and the Creation of an American World Order PDF Author: Robert J. McMahon
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1597976539
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
This compact and accessible biography critically assesses the life and career of Dean Acheson, one of Americaas foremost diplomats and strategists. As a top State Department official from 1941 to 1947 and as Harry S. Trumanas secretary of state from 1949 to 1953, Acheson shaped many of the key U.S. foreign policy initiatives of those years, including the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the rebuilding of Germany and Japan, Americaas intervention in Korea, and its early involvement in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Right up until his death in 1971, Acheson continued to participate in major policy decisions and debates, including the Cuban missile and Berlin crises and the Vietnam War.Dean Acheson can justifiably be called the principal architect of the American Century. More than any other individual, Acheson is responsible for designing and implementing the ultimately successful U.S. Cold War strategy for containing the Soviet Union. In an even broader sense, Acheson played an instrumental role in creating the institutions, alliances, and economic arrangements that, in the 1940s, brought to life an American-dominated world order. The remarkable durability of that world orderwhich has remained the dominant fact of international life long after the end of the Cold Warmakes a careful examination of Achesonas diplomacy especially relevant to todayas international challenges.

Act of Creation

Act of Creation PDF Author: Stephen C. Schlesinger
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786729708
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
In Act of Creation, Stephen C. Schlesinger tells a pivotal and little-known story of how Secretary of State Edward Stettinius and the new American President, Harry Truman, picked up the pieces of the faltering campaign initiated by Franklin Roosevelt to create a "United Nations." Using secret agents, financial resources, and their unrivaled position of power, they overcame the intrigues of Stalin, the reservations of wartime allies like Winston Churchill, the discontent of smaller states, and a skeptical press corps to found the United Nations. The author reveals how the UN nearly collapsed several times during the conference over questions of which states should have power, who should be admitted, and how authority should be divided among its branches. By shedding new light on leading participants like John Foster Dulles, John F. Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson, Nelson Rockefeller, and E. B White, Act of Creation provides a fascinating tale of twentieth-century history not to be missed.

Veterinary Service During the American Civil War

Veterinary Service During the American Civil War PDF Author: Walter R. Heiss
Publisher: America Star Books
ISBN:
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 92

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Book Description
There were 7,500,000 horses in the United States in 1861 and only fifty known graduate veterinarians, all of whom were schooled abroad and most were foreign born. That's the way it was on April 12, 1861, when the country split apart and the two nations embarked on programs of animal procurement, management, and medical care, the dimensions of which had never before been seen. As the rebellion raged, hundreds of thousands of horses and mules were processed through the remount systems of both sides. Demands on quartermasters, impressment officers, and medical care givers were staggering. Through all of this, the lack of an efficient veterinary service contributed significantly to the tragic loss of well over a million animals, most of which died in service from sickness and disease.

The Back Channel

The Back Channel PDF Author: William Joseph Burns
Publisher:
ISBN: 0525508864
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 522

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Book Description
As a distinguished and admired American diplomat of the last half century, Burns has played a central role in the most consequential diplomatic episodes of his time: from the bloodless end of the Cold War and post-Cold War relations with Putin's Russia to the secret nuclear talks with Iran. Here he recounts some of the seminal moments of his career, drawing on newly declassified cables and memos to give readers a rare, inside look at American diplomacy in action, and of the people who worked with him. The result is an powerful reminder of the enduring importance of diplomacy. -- adapted from jacket

Memory, History and Opposition

Memory, History and Opposition PDF Author: Rubie S. Watson
Publisher: James Currey Publishers
ISBN: 9780852559024
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This collection of articles focuses on the contest and contrast between official versions of history and historical events as remembered by actual participants or witnesses. The articles cover socialist regimes in the 20th century.

Known and Unknown

Known and Unknown PDF Author: Donald Rumsfeld
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101502495
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 882

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Book Description
A powerful memoir from the late former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld With the same directness that defined his career in public service, Rumsfeld's memoir is filled with previously undisclosed details and insights about the Bush administration, 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also features Rumsfeld's unique and often surprising observations on eight decades of history. Rumsfeld addresses the challenges and controversies of his illustrious career, from the unseating of the entrenched House Republican leader in 1965, to helping the Ford administration steer the country away from Watergate and Vietnam, to the war in Iraq, to confronting abuse at Abu Ghraib. Along the way, he offers his plainspoken, first-hand views and often humorous and surprising anecdotes about some of the world's best-known figures, ranging from Elvis Presley to George W. Bush. Both a fascinating narrative and an unprecedented glimpse into history,Known and Unknown captures the legacy of one of the most influential men in public service.