Acheson, Dean (redirected from Dean Acheson)

Acheson, Dean (Gooderham)

(born April 11, 1893, Middletown, Conn., U.S.—died Oct. 12, 1971, Sandy Spring, Md.) U.S. secretary of state (1949–53). After graduating from Yale University and Harvard Law School, he practiced law in Washington, D.C. In 1941 he joined the State Department, where he later served as undersecretary (1945–47). In 1947 he helped design the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. As secretary of state under Harry S. Truman, he promoted the formation of NATO and was a principal creator of U.S. foreign policy in the early years of the Cold War. During congressional hearings held by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Acheson refused to fire any alleged subversives in the State Department, including Alger Hiss. He established the policies of nonrecognition of China and aid to the regime of Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan, and he supported U.S. aid to the French colonial regime in Indochina. After leaving office, he continued to advise successive presidents. His memoir Present at the Creation won a 1970 Pulitzer Prize.

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Acheson, Dean (Gooderham) (1893–1971) diplomat, lawyer; born in Middletown, Conn. He was educated at Groton School and Yale, and received his law degree from Harvard in 1918. He served in the navy during World War I, then as private secretary to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1919–21). After serving briefly as undersecretary of the treasury under Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933), he returned to private practice before becoming assistant secretary of state (1941–43) and a council member of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) (1943). As undersecretary of state (1945–47), he helped formulate America's Cold War "containment" policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union and was closely involved in the creation of the Marshall Plan and the Truman Doctrine. As secretary of state (1947–53) he was instrumental in the creation of NATO, the rebuilding and rearming of Germany, formulation of atomic policy, and the non-recognition of Communist China. He advised Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and recommended withdrawal from Vietnam. His memoirs, Present at the Creation (1969), received a Pulitzer Prize (1970).