Gergen Dialogue --September 18, 1998

Gergen Dialgoue

September 18, 1998

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript

David Gergen, editor-at-large of U.S. News & World Report, engages James Chace, Professor of International Affairs at Bard College, author of Acheson, the Secretary of State Who Created the American World.
DAVID GERGEN: James, in your new biography of Dean Acheson you call him the most important figure in American foreign policy since John Quincy Adams. Why?
JAMES CHACE, Author, "Acheson:" Because of the structures that he built that last until today. There's, of course, at Bretton Woods he was very instrumental in the economic underpinnings that have given us free trade and stable monetary values until quite recently. He was also the man who was very instrumental in the doctrine of containment, which was incarnated in the Truman Doctrine, in the Marshall Plan, which put Europe back on its feet, and in the creation of NATO, which is, after all, still very much with us. Indeed, we've had a recent debate on expansion of NATO. This is a structure Acheson created. And finally, of course, he stood up to the Communists with Truman in Korea. He called his memoir of the State Department years "Present at the Creation." He wasn't just present at the creation; he was a prime architect of that creation.
DAVID GERGEN: As Secretary of State for the last four years of the Truman presidency, do you regard him as the leading secretary of state of the 20th century?
JAMES CHACE: Oh, absolutely. Again, he had certainly opportunity - there were other secretary of states certainly very brilliant men - who've been secretary of state - and women, indeed, today - but he had opportunities which he seized. At the end of the Second World War there was no American plan - the old Soviet Union was, after all, our putative ally. But when things began to fall apart, none of the people expected what happened - the breakup of the grand alliance - and what to do about it and what was going to happen. The important point about Acheson is he had the wisdom and the drive and the intelligence to build these structures that I just mentioned. And I think that's why he's the greatest secretary of state in this century.
DAVID GERGEN: What qualities did he bring to the office as a human being that he could figure these things out, along with the other men around him?
JAMES CHACE: Well, I think, first of all - I don't think one can underestimate the tremendous quality of integrity; he had tremendous integrity, Acheson. He really believed in service to the nation. He was not a self-serving man whatsoever, highly intelligent, steeped in history, the history of our own country, very deeply so. And so I think the knowledge of history, his deep sense of integrity, firm intelligence - and of course he had great loyalty from the President to whom he gave great loyalty - and so, therefore, they were a very, very powerful team.
DAVID GERGEN: There was a - that friendship between Dean Acheson and Harry Truman almost had a sweetness about it. You opened the book with a vignette from a time when he was actually the undersecretary, after the 1946 elections.
JAMES CHACE: Yes. That vignette's interesting because in 1946, Truman - well, I say Truman lost - the Democratic Party lost the House and the Senate, the first since time since 1930. So Truman came back from Independence, Missouri, the President, a totally discredited man. No one thought - he thought he was finished and took the train back from Independence to Union Station, Washington, got off the train, and no one was on the platform to meet him, except one person, the far end, standing very tall and very elegantly dressed, as Acheson was, in a Homburg, this was Dean Acheson, the undersecretary, and he met him, because he thought you meet the president coming back, and Truman was so pleased and surprised and said, come on back to the White House for a drink, and they went back and they talked. And it was a sense of fealty and loyalty which Truman deeply appreciated, and they got along extremely well. Their backgrounds were obviously very different. Acheson had a - was educated at the very best schools in the East, and seems to be an incarnate, in some ways, of the Eastern establishment, Eastern lawyer in Washington - Truman without a college education, a Midwesterner - and yet Acheson very much liked Truman's lack of pretension, his directness. Here was a man who was wonderfully well read in history, who used to like the public library and got those books out and read them. Acheson admired that enormously. He admired the directness of Truman, the straightforwardness, the honesty. And he gave that back to Truman.
DAVID GERGEN: And is that what helped him make that relationship work so well and why American foreign policy seemed to be executed so cleanly during that time with this enlightenment, because the two of them, as well as the men around them, seem to have such good relationships in part?
JAMES CHACE: They not only had good relations but both Truman and Acheson shared one very important attribute - decisiveness. They were both extremely decisive men, as by the way was General Marshall, he was actually the secretary of state - very decisive men. And that made a lot of difference. It wasn't a lot of waffling around. There wasn't a lot of discussion. Once something was decided, you just did it, and you stuck with it, and you very much support each other. I mean, Acheson, for example, would never go back to a meeting of his deputies and ever say that he felt differently from the President. Whatever the President and he had decided together, that was what was going to be. And they never knew if the president ever particularly disagreed with Acheson.
DAVID GERGEN: We remember those as golden years in our diplomacy, and yet, your book reminds us of how controversial Acheson was at the time. In fact, I can't remember any secretary of state since then who has come under more withering fire.
JAMES CHACE: Yes. Acheson was actually vilified, particularly by the Republican - by leading members of the Republican Party after 1948. First of all, Republicans were embittered because they lost an election they all thought they would win. And, secondly, they used Acheson as a whipping boy because of what they called the loss of China. There was no way, in fact, we could have kept China from falling to Mao Tse Tung, in my view, and I think most historians would agree with that today. But they tried to pin this on the Democrat and particularly on Acheson, and Joe McCarthy attacked Acheson more viciously perhaps than any other man in government, calling for his resignation. I think Nixon referred to it as "Acheson's College of Cowardly Communist Containment." He was viciously attacked, and he never cracked under it, or withered under it. He had enormous strength under these attacks, although it took a great deal out of him personally.
DAVID GERGEN: Let me ask you a final question, if I might. Some have written that the men that we had running foreign policy after the Second World War - Acheson, Marshall, Truman, George Kennan, Mitzi - go through that long list - represented the most enlightened statesmen we've had in our public policy circles since the Founding Fathers. What brings people of that caliber, that wisdom, to public life?
JAMES CHACE: Well, I think there are two things. First of all, I think you're right, that they were of enormously high caliber. The reason I think at that time was because of the Second World War. Many of these people had been successful in private life, and they came down to serve their country, because most of them were too old to fight. They took jobs in the government. And they were very talented men, but it was a question of service to the country and patriotism. When the war ended, the Cold War came along and, to be quite frank, it was more exciting, really, involved the United States at that point and going back to a law firm or to Wall Street, so you had very - people who really believed in service to the country because of the crisis. I think you get people at those moments - in 1932, at the Second World War. But I think also there were other times in our history where we've had very talented individuals who've risen - or who have come to the floor because of the vision or an inspiration that the presidents provide. I think, in fact, of Theodore Roosevelt. The country was a peace. There was relative prosperity, and yet, Roosevelt - Teddy Roosevelt inspired many, many young men to want to serve the country like Henry Stimson at the time, Walter Lippon, young Acheson. And to a certain degree I think that President Kennedy did some of the same things. Many people we all know really wanted to go to Washington because they were inspired by Kennedy, so I think that even in a period when there's no great crisis like there was in 1932, or as there was in the Second World War, you can find people if there is a leadership that provides a kind of inspiration that will attract young men and women to actually serve the nation.
DAVID GERGEN: James Chace, thank you.
JAMES CHACE: Thank you.

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