Dean Acheson
Essay
Jul
1971
For over a decade it has been received as accepted truth in the highly charged political atmosphere of Washington that the role, power and prestige of the Secretary and Department of State in the conduct of foreign affairs have steadily declined. Accompanying this decline, and accused of causing it, is said to have been an increasing part played by the President himself in this alluring, fashionable and important activity, accentuated, perhaps, by the appearance in the White House of a court favorite--a modern Leicester, Essex or Buckingham--served by over a hundred attendants and constantly advising the monarch on these matters in the antechamber. The New York Times, in a series of articles published in January 1971, dates these developments from FDR's time, though adding that the trend was arrested "during the Truman and Eisenhower years [until] the death of John Foster Dulles in 1959."
Essay
Jan
1966
It is well to check one's conclusions against the sweep of events over time. The newspapers must make their daily judgments; the columnists their biweekly syntheses; the monthlies content themselves with prediction of the future or explanation of the past. All of this misses the continuum of events. Those of each day, month and year grow out of what has gone before and will mark, shape and condition what comes after them.
Essay
Jan
1963
In the crisis precipitated by the discovery of Russian strategic nuclear weapons and delivery systems in Cuba, many Americans came to a new understanding of the great accretion of strength which membership in our alliances in this hemisphere and in Europe brings to a confrontation of power. They got a new understanding, too, of the vast importance of having choices of means, other than nuclear means, of meeting a hostile threat. These truths, seen in the sharp light of experience, bring into clearer relief the central problem of our European alliance.
