Marshall Plan Commemorative Section: An Extraordinary Partnership: Marshall and Acheson

James Chace

From Foreign Affairs, May/ June 1997

Summary:  A look back at perhaps the most important foreign policy success of the postwar period. Edited by Peter Grose, with contributions by historians Diane B. Kunz and David Reynolds, a memoir by Charles P. Kindleberger, a profile of Marshall and Acheson by James Chace and one of Will Clayton by Gregory Fossedal and Bill Mikhail. And reflections from Roy Jenkins, Walt Rostow, and Helmut Schmidt.

James Chace teaches international relations at Bard College and is editor of the World Policy Journal. His biography of Dean Acheson will be published in 1998 by Simon & Schuster.

George Catlett Marshall had worn the uniform of the U.S. Army for almost his entire adult life when President Truman named him secretary of state. The day he took the oath, Marshall walked unannounced into the office of the incumbent "number two" in the State Department hierarchy, Under Secretary Dean Acheson. "I will keep you only a minute," Marshall said with his unfailing courtesy and customary directness. "I want you to stay. Will you?"

Acheson, who had served out World War II as an assistant secretary of state, had no interest in remaining in office; he was eager to return to his lucrative law practice. Faced, however, with a formal request from arguably the most respected man in the land, he could only reply, "Certainly." In a matter of a few moments, they agreed to a transitional partnership of six months or so at the helm of the State Department.

Those six months from January to July 1947 marked the apex of American power and purpose in the Cold War. Under the stewardship of this brief, extraordinary partnership came the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, defining moments of American diplomacy whose effects endured for more than four decades and changed the course of history. Disparate in background and personal style, Marshall and Acheson recognized in each other a keen sense of public duty and an impatience with indecision.

Marshall was born in 1880 to the manager of a coal mine in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. Commissioned an army lieutenant the year after his graduation from the Virginia Military Institute in 1901, he served two tours of duty in the Philippines. Then, in World War I, he caught the attention of General John J. Pershing for his efficiency and logistical wizardry. For three years in the 1920s he managed a training mission in China, then successive base and training commands stateside. The day Hitler invaded Poland, Marshall was sworn in as the army chief of staff, charged with mobilizing the American military for a massive war effort and then with planning a two-front war against Germany and Japan. Churchill called Marshall "the true organizer of victory," and, in unaccustomed agreement, Stalin concurred.

On the home front, Marshall's stature soared even as his younger comrade, Dwight D. Eisenhower, won headlines during the 1944 invasion of Normandy. Eisenhower commanded what Marshall had planned. Senator Harry Truman called Marshall "the greatest living American," this at a time when Franklin D. Roosevelt was still alive. Suddenly becoming president on Roosevelt's death in 1945, Truman refused Marshall the peaceful retirement the 66-year-old general had planned for war's end, ordering him instead to China to mediate the raging civil war.

Wise in the ways of bureaucracy, Marshall arranged a "rear echelon" before his departure, one responsible official who would ensure that his dispatches would reach the president and not get lost in departmental power plays. For this mission of trust, Marshall called upon a State Department official he had scarcely met before but knew for his reputation of efficiency, forthrightness, and intelligence, the new under secretary, Dean Acheson. The partnership had begun.

A BLADE OF STEEL

Dean Gooderham Acheson was born in Middletown, Connecticut, in 1893, son of a clergyman. An indifferent student at Groton and Yale, he blossomed intellectually at Harvard Law School, presaging a stellar career in law and public service. He idolized Oliver Wendell Holmes and clerked for Louis Brandeis at the Supreme Court, then rose quickly to become a partner in the distinguished Washington law firm that became known as Covington and Burling.

Acheson was tall and elegant, sporting a full, clipped mustache and habitually wearing a Homburg in what seemed to many a British affectation. Not at all, said the British ambassador to Washington, Sir Oliver Franks, a personal as well as official friend; Acheson was "not at all an English or British type; he is a pure American type of a rather rare species." He was, said Franks, "a blade of steel."

When Marshall became secretary of state upon his return from his discouraging mission to China, he promised Acheson a free hand in running the department; Acheson would be an all-powerful chief of staff who would consult his superior officer only when he needed help. "I shall expect of you the most complete frankness, particularly about myself," Marshall told his new deputy. He had no feelings, he said, "except those I reserve for Mrs. Marshall." Long afterwards Acheson wrote, "I wonder how many men have ever had such fundamental humility or so delicate and punctilious a sense of honor."