Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1949-01-09
Dean Acheson

1iFeI tl4e IdCI IIlaI IIle COnQ1tlOn OF MS
health has made General Marshalps re-
tirement imperative, the President could
hardly have chosen q more experienced
man for Secretary of State than Dean
Acheson. Because Of Mr.. Acheson's past
association with Alger Hiss, who has been
indicted for perjury in connection with
charges having to do with a Communist
spy ring, the selection has been greeted
with GOODNESS in some quarters. There can
be little doubt, however, that the Senate
when it studies and acts upon the appoint
ment, will approve it readily enough.
This is so for the simple reason that
Mr.. Acheson's record is In itself powerful
evidence of his fitness for the Office to
which he has been called by the President.
To begin with, he knows the State Depart
ment inside out, having served there with
great distinction from 1941 until his re-
tirement as Undersecretary in June of 1947
During those years of service, often in the
role Of Acting Secretary, he consistently
displayed vigor and intelligence Of excep-
tional value to Secretary Byrnes and later
to Secretary Marshall
An international lawyer Of outstanding
tributed great deal to the formulation of
some of the most basic elements of our
foreign policy in both the economic and
diplomatic fields. Former Assistant Secre-
tary of State Adolf Berle has been quoted
as telling the House american Activities
Committee that the Secretary designate,
during the height of the war in 1914, was
in the departments pro-Russian wing and
once vouched for Mr.. Hiss. That may well
be. In those days, many excellent Amer
leans, eager to speed up victory and hoping
for new era of international cooperation,
were inclined to cater to the Soviet Union
whose long-term intentions were not then
clear. AS for vouching for Mr. Hiss-whose
culpability, incidentally, has not yet been
definitely establiShed-it Is worth noting
that MIR. Acheson was in large company,
including distinguished Republicans like
John Foster Dulles.
In any case, whatever may have been his
feelings in 1914. Mr.. Acheson, by no stretch
of the imagination, can be accurately de-
scribed as favoring a soft or appeasing
policy toward Russia now For one thing,
in 1916, he headed the State Department
committee that drafted the essentials of
the American plan for international atomic
control-a plan bitterly opposed by Moscow.
Similarly, early in 1947, he was the first
of our high officials to speak out bluntly
against the Soviet Unions aggressive and
expanding policy-a statement that drew
a sharp formal protest from Foreign Min
lister Molotov.
Again, later in the same year, Mr.. Ache
son helped formulate the Greek Turkish
aid project to check the Red tide in that
part of the world and month before
Secretary Marshalls famous Harvard
address on the subject. he outlined the
European Recovery Program in a speech
at Cleveland, Mississippi. Finally, just two
weeks before his retirement, he went to
Wesleyan University in Connecticut and
gave voice to the most scathing official
indictment Of Russia heard up to that time
in the postwar world.
This record speaks for itself. As Secre-
tary of State Mr.. Acheson is not likely to
be foolishly antiSoviet just for the sake
of being anti-Soviet, but it is obvious, II
his past performance may be taken at face
value, that he will not be soft either. Our
foreign policy as President Truman has
emphasized, is not facing change. The
State Department will be in competent
hands under Mr.. Acheson'S direction.