First Plunge

With his hands clasped in front of him and his notebook tucked under his arm like a Psalter, Secretary of State Dean Acheson paced down the aisle of the State Department's auditorium last week. The big room was crammed with 200 newsmen for the new Secretary's first press conference. Gravely, he seated himself.

"One of the happy parts of this press conference is that I learned over the radio this morning what it was about," he said. "That seemed to me to be a triumph of modern journalism . . . I think my function ought to be to live up to the advance report. I understood that you were going to question me about Point Four of the President's address [the spread of U.S. industrial techniques throughout the world] and so . . . I might as well plunge into that."

No Plumbing. Acheson leaned back, spoke over his clasped hands like a high-school teacher lecturing a class in civics. "To me, the essential thing about it is that it is the use of material means to a nonmaterial end." That end was not the installation of modern plumbing in every home, nor profit for U.S. imperialism. "It is not that material objects in and of themselves make a better or fuller life, but they are the means by which people can obtain freedom, not only freedom from the pressure of those other human beings who would restrict their freedom, but help in the ancient struggle of man to earn his living and get his bread from the soil."

In almost every country, Acheson went on, "There is some nucleus of skill, some group of people whose technical abilities can be expanded with help from the outside." The U.S. would work with these people. If successful, the program would also "create the conditions under which capital may flow into those countries. [The President] did not say this was to be governmental capital."

Narrow Edge. Acheson handled a barrage of questions with firmness and relaxed good, humor. When a question was too technical, he was quick to admit that the questioner had gone over the narrow edge of his knowledge. A reporter pointed out that some "leading Republican papers" had inferred that "there has been some injury to bipartisan foreign policy." Acheson reddened slightly, and smiled. Was he looking at the injury? Acheson inquired amiably. The newsmen laughed, and the reporter backtracked hastily: "It was their insinuation, not mine." Well, said Acheson, he would do everything he could to keep the most bipartisan, nonpartisan and any other kind of antipartisan foreign policy.

Studied Air. He was something new after the blunt integrity of Marshall, the glad-handing of Stettinius, the political quickness of Byrnes, the Hull who had been alternately earthy and ponderous. The new Secretary was a man who took as much care with his phrases as he did with his clothes--both had a slightly studied air of elegant informality. His unruffled aloofness was salted with a dry humor.

Last week he received visitors in his paneled office, where an antique pendulum clock loudly ticks among the modern furnishings. Usually he slid out from behind his big desk to sit beside the visitor on a comfortable red leather sofa. At week's end he watched as chubby, square-jawed James Webb was sworn in as his Under Secretary. Said Acheson: "I have here your commission . . . I hand it to you and congratulate myself."

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