Talk:Dean Acheson

Suggestions of Bias

This needs to be added to the article. "On January 12, 1950, United States Secretary of State Dean Acheson told the National Press Club that America's Pacific defense perimeter was made up of the Aleutians, Ryukyu, Japan, and the Philippines implying that the U.S. might not fight over Korea. This omission, though not deliberate, encouraged the North and the Soviets." One of Acheson's most important actions.

Isn't this a little biased? I mean come on most of the people McCarthy accused were innocent but McCarthy's accusations are used against Acheson as "proof" Acheson was a commie spy!

• Biased? I think the myriad McCarthy quotes might tip one off.

The sources aren't exactly top notch academic work, either. The article cites to a book called "The Shadows of Power" by a fellow named James Perloff who seems to be a pretty straightforward conspiracy nut. From the back cover of that book:

"Does America have a hidden oligarchy? Is U.S. foreign policy run by a closed shop? What is the Council on Foreign Relations? It began in 1921 as a front organization for J.P. Morgan and Company. By World War II it had acquired unrivaled influence on American foreign policy. Hundreds of U.S. government administrators and diplomats have been drawn from its ranks - regardless of which party has occupied the White House. But what does the Council on Foreign Relations stand for? Why do the major media avoid discussing it? What has been its impact on America's past - and what is it planning for the future? These questions and more are answered by James Perloff in The Shadows of Power."

Some other Perloff titles: "Tornado in a Junkyard: The Relentless Myth of Darwinism," and "The Case Against Darwin: Why the Evidence Should Be Examined."

The other book "Freedom's case against Dean Acheson" seems even more suspect. The only summation of the book I could find anywhere was the following: "Traces Dean Acheson's Communist connections throughout the past nineteen years and contends that these connections make him unfit to be Secretary of State."

The author of this article has an axe to grind.

• I agree that this article could use some NPOVing. It seems an inordinate amount of information comes from a book that was quite critical of Acheson. Particularly as from what I know of Acheson (admittedly quite little), I thought he had solid credentials as an old-school anti-communist. Anyway, I also wanted to know if he was an advisor to Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The movie Thirteen Days has him as such, and I think the movie is pretty accurate when it comes to that sort of thing (less so when Costner's character is involved). Can anyone confirm this? -R. fiend 29 June 2005 17:12 (UTC)
  • Kennedy called upon Acheson for advice several times during his presidency, such as during the Berlin and Cuban Missile Crises. During the Cuban Missile Crisis Acheson was appointed by Kennedy to an 'Executive Committee of the National Security Council' in order to reach a consensus on how to react to the discovery of nuclear weapons in Cuba. According to 'Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis' by Raymond Garthoff, Acheson served as "The leading 'hawk', calling for an immediate air strike and defeat of Castro's rule".
  • It seems like there's some good information here that could be added to the article. Would the anon who posted it care to add it? He certainly seems knowledgable on the subject, and could probably improve this article which still reads a bit like a subtle critique of Acheson. -R. fiend 1 July 2005 15:10 (UTC)
• From Mario J. Machado (November 2005):

What heck Dean Acheson was a communist !!!! The Venona documents disclosed soviet agents in the USA during the McCarthy era... Senator Joseph McCarthy has thus been vindicated in the 1990's. You people have to Wake Up to this Fact. It is now well documented and there is no room for further discussion!!!

As Scott Speidel, Florida State University has well stated:

"McCarthy's charge was credible, because President Harry Truman's Secretary of State at the time, Dean Acheson, is well known as a man sympathetic to Communism and Communists. As far back as the 1930s Acheson had worked as a lawyer on behalf of Stalin's regime, prior to the diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States, and recently he had ignored reports about the Communist Party connections of his protege at the State Department, Alger Hiss (Venona documents prove him to be a communist spy). Acheson also had been the chief U.S. advisor at the Yalta Conference, in February 1945, which consigned Eastern Europe to Communist rule, and he presided over the drafting of the United Nations Charter. In the State Department Acheson fostered the careers of Communists and stifled the careers of anti-Communists."

Get a Life!!! People The USSR got exactly what they wanted when they joined the Nazis in taking over Europe. They only wanted the eastern half of Europe as agreed with the Nazis. When the Nazis broke the agreement and went after the USSR; that is when they became our allies. Thanks to Dean Acheson, they got what they wanted AFTER THE WAR !!!

Man, I cannot believe how far Commies will go to present themselves as the "good" ally. An ally that murdered more innocent people than the Nazi's ... and this is according to the present day Russian government. Heck, even their national encyclopedia states this. You have to be a die-hard Commie to believe otherwise !!!

• Your Scott Speidel is also an anti-semite: http://reactor-core.org/how-the-marxists-destroyed-joe-mccarthy.html

I have to agree that this article could use some work. Acheson is drawn in much too unfavorable a light, proably because too much is sourced from this conspiracy theory book (whereas nothing should come from it). Acheson is not a communist. Rlove 02:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

PFIAB Service

Didn't Acheson serve on Kennedy's PFIAB?Nobs01 1 July 2005 00:26 (UTC)

As far as I know, Acheson did not for any extended length of time hold any formal positions in Kennedy's government.

• PFIAB, as I understand it, is really somewhat of an informal group of senior ex-government employees who may even be unpaid & have little or no staff. Purely advisory based on their many years of experience.Nobs01 1 July 2005 01:40 (UTC)

It seems like there's some good information here that could be added to the article. Would the anon who posted it care to add it? He certainly seems knowledgable on the subject, and could probably improve this article which still reads a bit like a subtle critique of Acheson. -R. fiend 1 July 2005 15:10 (UTC)

Using Thirteen Days; Not Citing Sources

I have removed the most recent addition. It appears to smply be a summary of the editor's impressions from the movie Thirteen Days. Acheson's career was much more significant than his role in this particular episode, and a recap of a docudrama is not characteristic of the level of scholarship needed at Wikipedia-- partcularly in this article, which is tagged for bias. If the editor wishes to add the paragraph, like all other editors he should cite his sources. ALC Washington 02:24, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

NPOV Cleanup

I began a cleanup of the article, removing sources from the conspiracy book and including only information I could gleam from various historical references I had access to -- in other words, "the obvious stuff." We need to expand the article a bit, so feel free to add more, but let's try to tone down the McCarty-era rhetoric. Also, some of the article was lifted pretty much verbatim from the biography in the See Also, so I removed that as well. We need to strive for a neutral, complete, encyclopedic-quality entry. Not a conspiracy theory.

If people now find the article neutral, feel free to remove the NPOV tag. Rlove 16:50, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

While I'm glad someone took a stab at NPOVing this, it really seems you removed too much. In fact, you removed his entire service as Secretery of State. He went from appointed in '49 to stepping down in '52, the very next sentence. I think stuff like "Acheson and George Marshall, Secretary of Defense, came under increasing attack from right-wing politicians who considered the two men to be soft on communism. Acheson became a byword to many Americans. On December 15, 1950, the Republicans in the House of Representatives resolved unanimously that he be removed from office" is good information to include (I was skeptical of the last point, but I found some verification when I looked a while back). "Acheson also upset the right wing when he took the side of Harry S. Truman in his dispute with General Douglas MacArthur over the Korean War. Acheson and Truman wanted to limit the war to Korea whereas MacArthur called for the extension of the war to China." is NPOV as well, it seems to me. A quote or two by McCarthy could be thrown in as well, as long as they're real quotes; they illustrate the point well that Achseon was no darling f the far right. I'm no Acheson expert or anything, so I'd like to get more input on this. -R. fiend 18:19, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I did remove a lot. This information needs to be added back, after verification. But we don't want to sum up his secretary of state career with how McCarty despised him (which I think is made out to be more than it is, anyhow). He accomplished a lot more than pissing off the right. Rlove 18:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I just went back through the diff to see what I could add back, and, honestly, the removed stuff is all junk. It is a series of unattributed quotes and accusations from "the right wing" trying to paint some conspiracy around Acheson. I'm not trying to defend the man--at all--but if someone read the previous version of the page without any prior knowledge, they were going to be seriously mislead and confused. When I think of Acheson historically, none of this McCarty junk comes to mind. Rlove 18:56, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I do think that the article needs to be expanded upon, but the cleanup was ong overdue. At this point, removing everything from the conspiracy theory books except the NPOV information would still have left a very unbalanced portrayal of Acheson's service as SecState that would have done nothing to elucidate the major scholarly and historical views of his service during that period. I am for completely rewriting the "49-"53 period, rather than working off of the old POV text. ALC Washington 15:31, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Fully agree. I gave an honest effort to go back and re-add some of the information from the pre-NPOV cleanup, and I could find nothing. The article really was terrible. We need to fill in two parts of his career that are historical and information-rich: His tenure as SecState and his contributions on ExCom during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Acheson was viewed in subsequent administrations as a true statesmen and a skilled diplomat, so much so that he even advised a Republican administration. I think his article should convey that, instead of paragraphs of commie accusation and odd quotes. Let's get cracking! Rlove 15:38, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Marshall Plan

Acheson designed the economic aid program to Europe that became known as the Marshall Plan. Acheson believed the best way to contain Stalin's Communism and prevent future European conflict was to restore economic prosperity to Western Europe, to encourage interstate cooperation there, and help the American economy by making its trading partners richer.

and the Marshall plan article:

The initiative was named for Secretary of State George Marshall and was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan.

So... what's the answer here? 159.121.168.133 14:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Written by Dean Acheson's kids?

Acheson is credited as the seemingly prime mover of far too many major post-war projects. I realize there was earlier 'anti-communist paranoia' bias, but there also is respectable opinion that Acheson was part of an 'Anglophile' WWII foreign policy team that allowed the British to cede Eastern Europe to an emerging Soviet empire in exchange for Soviet 'respect' for the British Empire.Haberstr (talk) 17:20, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

that comment seem to be from Acheson's divorced wife. :) Rjensen (talk) 18:16, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Acheson for Nixon in 1968?

I question the claim that Acheson, a Democrat, supported Richard Nixon over Hubert Humphrey in 1968. One of the sources cited for this is a book about Acheson by Robert Beisner. Beisner's book says Acheson backed Humphrey. It is true that once Nixon became president, Acheson supported him on some foreign policy matters. But I believe Nixon supported Humphrey in '68. This Acheson-for-Nixon claim needs further research. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FCC8:BFC0:32:1586:696D:7CAF:AD15 (talk) 05:55, 16 January 2021 (UTC)