Acheson, Dean

Acheson, Dean (1893–1971) U.S. diplomat instrumental in the Marshall Plan Although Dean Acheson served in government during World War II as assistant secretary of state from 1941 to 1945, he is most significant for his role in the United States' single greatest contribution to the postwar recovery and welfare of Europe, the Marshall Plan. In 1947, Acheson, at the time undersecretary of state (in the office of Secretary of State George C. Marshall), laid out in broad form the principal points of the great relief, recovery, and redevelopment program, which not only rescued a devastated Europe, but saved much of it from being engulfed by the Soviet Union. Acheson was educated at Yale University and at Harvard Law School. After serving as private secretary to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Acheson joined a prestigious Washington law firm in 1921, then entered government service in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 as undersecretary of the treasury. During the war years, he served as an assistant secretary of state and, from 1945 to 1947, as undersecretary of state. In this post, Acheson was instrumental in engineering Senate approval of U.S. membership in the United Nations. In addition to his work in helping to design and promote the Marshall Plan, Acheson also profoundly influenced American postwar policy with his strong stance against the expansion of communism and his formulation of the so-called Truman Doctrine, including its leading theme of "containing" communism whenever and wherever its forcible expansion occurred. Acheson became secretary of state in the cabinet of Harry S. Truman in January 1949 and was instrumental in the creation of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. During the 1950s, despite his strongly anticommunist stance, Acheson became the target of the Red-baiting senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, but remained in office until President Truman left the White House in 1953. Returning to the private practice of law, Acheson also continued to serve as a presidential adviser and was the author of several important firsthand histories, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Present at the Creation, an account of his years as secretary of state. Further reading: Acheson, Dean. Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department. 1969; reprint ed., New York: W. W. Norton, 1987; Lamberton, John. American Visions of Europe: Franklin D. Roosevelt, George F. Kennan, and Dean G. Acheson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.