Background
Dean Gooderham Acheson was born in Middletown, Connecticut on April 11, 1893.
Dean Gooderham Acheson was born in Middletown, Connecticut on April 11, 1893.
A graduate of Yale University and of Harvard Law School.
Acheson served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. In 1921 he joined a law firm in Washington, D.C.
His first government post was in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt as undersecretary of the Treasury in 1933, he entered the Department of State in 1941 as an assistant secretary and was undersecretary from 1945 to 1947.
Despite his strong stance in what he conceived to be a global confrontation with communism, Acheson was the target of attack by foreign-policy critics within both political parties. His enemies were particularly inflamed when, during the congressional hearings of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy on subversive activities (1949–50), Acheson refused to fire any of his State Department subordinates. His most widely publicized remark was, “I will not turn my back on Alger Hiss” a former State Department officer later convicted of perjury in denying that he had engaged in espionage in the 1930s.
Demands for Acheson’s resignation increased after the entry of communist China into the Korean War (1950–53). The storm of public controversy erupted more violently after the president removed General Douglas MacArthur as commander of forces in Korea. Acheson subsequently established the policies of nonrecognition of China and aid to the Nationalist regime of General Chiang Kai-shek on Taiwan; later he also supported U.S. aid to the French colonial regime in Indochina.
After leaving office Acheson returned to private law practice but continued to serve as foreign-policy adviser to successive presidents. His account of his years in the Department of State, Present at the Creation, won the Pulitzer Prize in history in 1970. Other works include Power and Diplomacy (1958), Morning and Noon (1965), The Korean War (1971), and Grapes from Thorns (posthumous, 1972).
A lifelong Democrat, Acheson worked at a law firm in Washington D.C., Covington & Burling, often dealing with international legal issues before Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed him Undersecretary of the United States Treasury in March 1933. When Secretary William H. Woodin fell ill, Acheson suddenly found himself acting secretary despite his ignorance of finance. Because of his opposition to FDR's plan to deflate the dollar by controlling gold prices (thus creating inflation), he was forced to resign in November 1933 and resumed his law practice. In 1939–1940 he headed a committee to study the operation of administrative bureaus in the federal government.