The Fatal Flaw?

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As the plane landed, the familiar bony face, the hawk nose, the mustache, the Homburg, were framed in a cabin window. The plane, the President's Independence, rolled to a stop at the Military Air Transport Service terminal in Washington, and the most controversial figure in international politics came down the ramp. It was Christmas week, and the U.S. Secretary of State had flown in a few hours from snowy Brussels into the freezing pre-dawn of Washington. Still standing, in effect, between two continents, he shook hands with a greeter. How was the weather in Europe? "The weather was very bad in Europe," he said, and climbed into a limousine to be driven into the capital. There the weather--the political weather--was even worse.

He had gone off to the Brussels conference with the denunciation of Republican Senators howling coldly in his ears; he had come back into a gale still raging, to a country split over foreign policy and filled with demands that he resign.

This week, in a New Year's report to the U.S., he expanded his gloomy note to include the entire world's ideological climate at year's end. "We have gone through a dark year," he said.

The Worst or the Best? What people thought of Dean Gooderham Acheson ranged from the proposition that he was a fellow traveler, or a wool-brained sower of "weeds of jackassery," or an abysmally uncomprehending man, or an appeaser, or a warmonger who was taking the U.S. into a world war, to the warm if not so audible defense that he was a great Secretary of State, a brilliant executor of the best of all possible foreign programs. A lot of the charges that the State Department had housed party-liners and homosexuals had obviously stuck. But Acheson had the confidence of Administration Democrats and some support from neutral non-partisans--notably from a Republican ex-Secretary of State, Henry Stimson who, in one of the last acts before his recent death, set himself against Acheson's decriers with the indignant statement: "No one who knows his extraordinary record of able and disinterested public service can believe that he is in any danger from these little men." Observed the conservative London Economist: "Mr. Acheson is regarded in the outside world not merely as a good Secretary of State but as one of the best that the United States has had in modern times."

Last week, tall, elegant and unruffled, the Secretary was back at his daily routine. From his red brick house in Georgetown, he either rode to work in a department limousine, or walked with little Justice Felix Frankfurter, his onetime Harvard Law School teacher and close friend. In his fifth-floor office in the new State Department Building in Washington's Foggy Bottom, he tried not to listen to the criticisms, read key telegrams, listened to briefings, held conferences and with his blue, slightly protuberant eyes, studied the state of his foreign policy.

"Swords of Ice." It was not a very encouraging study. U.S. troops, defeated in a great battle, had established a new line in the lower part of an Asiatic appendix. China was under complete Communist control. In the two years since he became Secretary, the U.S. had become entangled in a paradox: insisting that its real concern was Europe, it nevertheless now had virtually all its effective soldiers in Asia. Europe, instead of being reassured by all the earnests of U.S. help, was filled with doubts and suspicions.

Within a week, the 82nd Congress would convene with an increased representation of Republicans elected in a campaign in which he had been a central issue.

To what extent was Acheson to blame for the U.S. being where it was? Any re-examination of recent U.S. history would have to acknowledge two basic errors!

They were: 1) the tragically tardy recognition by the U.S. of the fact that Soviet Russia is its enemy, and 2) the nation's too-long-postponed effort to rearm. Mistake No. 2 involved many people-the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Congress' (including many Republicans), Harry Truman and ex-Defense Secretary Louis Johnson, dancing in a program of false economy through the critical months of '49 and '50 with what Columnist Stewart Alsop last week called the President's "silly optimism" and Johnson's "dark guilt." Certainly Mistake No. 2 had left the State Department, in an old Chinese phrase, armed with "spears of straw and swords of ice."

But to what extent was Acheson to blame for Mistake No. 1, and to what extent had he determined U.S. foreign policy, and to what extent could he, or anyone else, have done any better?

The Lodestar. Acheson's involvement in U.S. foreign policy began, not in 1949 when he became Secretary, but in the years from 1941 to 1947, when he was first an assistant, then the Under Secretary of State.

During those subordinate years at State, Acheson had been an intellectual lodestar, and sometimes spokesman of a "liberal" group opposed to a "right wing" group (led by Adolf Berle) which had taken an antipodal position on Red Russia. The Acheson group (which included, among others, Alger Hiss) had held various attitudes toward Russia, none of them unfriendly. It was the Acheson group which had been the first to believe that the Chinese Communists might be tamed, and the last to identify the real enemy as Soviet Russia.

One incident from those years dramatically illustrated the way that attitude worked. In 1945 George Marshall was getting ready to depart on his special mission to Chungking. He awaited the President's instructions, and the War Department submitted a draft of what it would advise. The War Department would promise Chiang Kai-shek U.S. support in establishing the Nationalist government's authority over all of China and Manchuria; it wanted the U.S. to use every means to get the Nationalists north of the Yellow River. Purpose: to let them, instead of the Chinese Communists, take the territories abandoned by the defeated Japanese troops still in Manchuria, and seize the Japanese arms. With Dean Acheson's approval, this draft was rewritten by Director of Far Eastern Affairs John Carter Vincent, one of the Acheson group. The Vincent draft instructed Marshall to press Chiang into a coalition with the Chinese Communists.

Marshall demurred. He had more confidence in the general staff's estimate of the situation. The issue was resolved in a long conference between Marshall and Under Secretary Acheson. Terms of the resolution: General Marshall finally accepted what was essentially the Vincent-Acheson draft. With the blessing of the President, Marshall flew off on his errand.

The rest of the story is well known. Marshall failed. Chiang was abandoned to his enemies. A little more than a year after Marshall's return, Chiang's uncertain forces were in full flight before the Communist tidal wave.

The Alibi. In January 1949, when he became Secretary after a brief interim with his old Washington law firm Acheson therefore inherited some of the policies and problems which he had helped create. Although he might have preferred to turn his back on the East, he was prodded into facing it. Gingerly he measured the problem of Asia, which by this time was well on the way to becoming an immeasurable disaster.

His policy in China, Acheson said, would be to "wait until the dust settles"--one of the major decisions and disastrous phrases that have boomeranged to plague him. In Korea, an apparently minor decision had to be made. Two years before when Russia showed no signs of relinquishing North Korea, the U.N. General Assembly decided that the only expedient course was to give South Korea over to a Korean government, duly elected under the aegis of the U.N. The Department of the Army was very anxious to get the last the U.S. occupation troops (about 8,000 men) out of the peninsula. Army Secretary Kenneth Royall kept urging State to give him the signal. Acheson gave the signal and by June 1949 the troops were withdrawn.

With Syngman Rhee, the duly elected President of South Korea, facing a Russian-run North Korea, with the triumphant Chinese Reds pouring south over China from Shanghai, with criticisms of his policies mounting in the U.S., Acheson turned on his attackers.

For more than a year, State had been assembling a treatise on China. Acheson had his close friend, now Ambassador at Large Philip Jessup, reassemble and edit it and dropped it like a finishing bomb on Chiang's all but lost cause.

It was the so-called White Paper--a scathing denunciation of the corruption and inefficiency of Chiang's government of a regime "without faith in itself " of Nationalist armies that "did not have to be defeated; they disintegrated." There was some opposition in the department to issuing the White Paper, and even Philip Jessup has since admitted that it was a highly irregular piece of diplomacy. The one reason for issuing it was to provide Acheson's State Department with an alibi for its share in China's tragic disaster.

End of the Book. Two other incidents closed, or were supposed to close, the book on Chiang Kaishek. In December 1940 the Joint Chiefs of Staff tentatively decided to send a military mission to Chiang's transplanted government on Formosa. The Joint Chiefs thus acknowledged Formosa's strategic importance; Acheson overrode them.

Two weeks later, before the National Press Club, Acheson drew the U.S. defense line in the Pacific from AIaska to the Philippines, and declared: "So far as the military security of other areas in the Pacific [e.g., Formosa, Korea] is concerned it must be clear that no person can guarantee those areas against military attack." That statement signified the great U.S. write-off of Asia.

The Thousand Reasons. Acheson argued in the White Paper that, short of a "colossal commitment of our armies," there was nothing the U.S. could have done to save China, that the destiny of that massive, torn country was out of U.S. hands. Certainly Chiang's government, with its one-party rule, its graft and its unpopularity, had a great deal to do with its own collapse; Mao Tse-tung's toughness and shrewdness had much to do with the Communists' triumph. But the pertinent fact for Americans was that their own State Department, by its acts and by its failures to act, had at crucial moments undermined Chiang, aided Mao.

At Yalta, Franklin Roosevelt, in trying to persuade Stalin to join in the Pacific war, had bribed him with Dairen and Port Arthur and the railways of Manchuria, and thereby had thrown China's door open to Russia. The views of such experts on Russia as George Kennan were rejected. No White Paper arguments could alter the fact that a majority of U.S. advisers on China were uncomprehending or prejudiced; that China policy was being made in Washington largely by the haters of Chiang's Kuomintang government; that no one who warned of the threat of Asiatic Communism was listened to in Washington ; that right up to the invasion of Korea by Communist Chinese, Acheson's State Department continued hopefully to stroke the fur of the Red leader, Mao Tse-tung.

In a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Congressman Walter Judd, ex-missionary to China and longtime critic of Acheson, made one observation apropos the State Department's alibis: "I can give you a thousand reasons why we cannot succeed in China, but our job is to find means by which we can succeed." Those means were never thoroughly explored.

As damning an answer as any to the question of who failed is to be found right in Foggy Bottom. There the China policy is now quietly referred to, behind hands, as "the China mistake." Most of the old Far East policymakers have been scattered to other fields. John Carter Vincent was sent to Switzerland. Walton Butterworth, who followed Vincent as head of the Far East section, was sent to Sweden. The most notable survivor among the architects of the "China mistake" is Secretary Acheson.

NSC 68. With a much clearer eye, in January 1949 the new Secretary had faced Western Europe. Dean Gooderham Acheson, son of an Anglican cleric, graduate of Groton, Yale and Harvard Law School, could understand the West.

In the West, Acheson thought, lay the hope of stopping Russian Communism. In his previous capacities at State he had done yeoman service in helping to prepare and win congressional approval of Lend-Lease, UNRRA, the World Bank, the Export-Import Bank and the Truman Doctrine. In a speech in the spring of 1947 he had outlined the ideas which George Marshall had taken up a month later, and which became the Marshall Plan. During the months immediately following Acheson's induction as Secretary, the West even held the momentary initiative. Acheson presided over the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty creating (on paper) a collective defense system. The idea had not been his; it had originated in a resolution presented by Senator Arthur Vandenberg, approved by a Republican Senate in the 80th Congress by a 64-to-4 vote. But Acheson had earnestly carried it through. He saw the Russians, outsmarted by the allies' great airlift, give up the Berlin blockade.

Then, somewhere in the vastness of the U.S.S.R., Russian scientists exploded an atomic bomb.

There was consternation in Washington. The President ordered State and Defense to re-examine U.S. positions around the globe and report to him exactly what needed to be done. Acheson himself was named boss of the project, which finally produced a massive document dubbed NSC (for National Security Council) 68. Among 68's recommendations were the creation of vast armaments, the spending of tens of billions annually. Louis Johnson took a horrified look and repaired to his corner, where he sulked over what was being done to his economy program. While he sulked, while the military's budgeting machinery ponderously turned, the project stood still until the Korean invasion.

"No Greater Disagreement." Acheson himself--while the rest of the Truman Administration talked about economy in the armed forces--had awakened to the final futility of negotiating with Russia from any position except "a situation of strength." His awakening marked the beginning of a reconsideration of a liberal fallacy: that the democratic idea can win out in the world simply because it is good. In a series of addresses, Acheson laid out the necessarily dangerous course for a democratic nation in a world with a big, unfriendly neighbor. "Those who practice [Communism] pick out our country as the principal target of attack . . . rightly. It is our country which stands between the Kremlin and dominion over the entire world . . . They would use any means at their command to weaken and harm us. We are faced with a challenge and a threat to the very basis of our civilization . . . "There can be no agreement unless one idea is done away with, and that is the idea of aggression . . . We do not propose to subvert the Soviet Union. We shall not attempt to undermine Soviet independence. That real and present threat of aggression stands in the way of every attempt at understanding with the Soviet Union. There can be no greater disagreement than when someone wants to eliminate your existence altogether."

"Arrangement for Living." That was Acheson's estimate of the situation. This was to be the direction of his policies: "We shall go on trying to find a common ground for agreement, not perfect or eternal agreement but at least a better arrangement for living together in greater safety ... As the free world becomes stronger, it will become progressively easier to get agreements."

It was definitely not appeasement. It was a policy involving almost superhuman efforts carried on over many years. Situations of strength could not be maintained without sacrifice or without risk. War was the continuous risk.

This was the compass of Acheson's formal policy. Did it fall short of the problem? Some critics said that it did--at the point where Acheson rejected the idea of "subverting" Russia. Could the West ever win until it had destroyed the Communist regime?

"I think it is entirely possible," Acheson has said in less formal moments, "that When the Russians see they cannot dominate the world they will be compelled to think of themselves as Russians--not as apostles of Communism. As Russians there is no reason why they should find their interests are incompatible with the West."

It was an irony of history that the first acute test of Acheson's policy came not in Europe, where he was watching, but in Asia, on which he had turned his back. Exactly one year after the U.S. pulled its occupation troops out of South Korea, Russia gave the North Koreans the signal to attack.

Both Corners of the Mouth. Contrary to the myth that it was Harry Truman's own bold decision to fight in Korea, the idea actually originated in the State Department. Acheson's director of Far East affairs, Dean Rusk, and Army Secretary Frank Pace were dining out the night the first message arrived from Seoul. Rusk saw the hazards and also the possibilities of the situation. Russia at the moment was boycotting the Security Council. With Acheson's permission, Rusk got Trygve Lie started on calling a Security Council meeting. Acheson, meanwhile, was convincing the President and the generals that the Korean attack was an act of aggression that had to be met, that if it went unopposed the idea of collective security would collapse. The U.S. went into the Security Council with its mind made up, and with no Russians around to cast a veto, won prompt agreement that the U.S. and U.N. should intervene.

A statement was added saying that more arms would be promptly shipped to Indo-China and the Philippines, while Formosa, on the other hand, would be neutralized behind the Seventh Fleet. Why Formosa was added, State officials now cannot readily explain. The probable answer is that someone thought the Chinese Communists could be neutralized by talking tough out of one corner of the mouth and by speaking softly out of the other. Chiang's offer of 33,000 troops for Korea was turned down on the ground that it might provoke the Chinese Communists to get into the fight. They got in anyway. By peremptorily forbidding Chiang to harass the Chinese mainland, the U.S. also gave the Chinese Communists flank protection from Formosa, in the same hope that they would stay out of Korea. They got in anyway.

At any rate, the State Department had led the way and the U.S. had acted in Korea. The rest of the job was left to Douglas MacArthur, who also gambled that the Chinese Communists would not invade Korea, and walked right into Mao's attack. The inescapable conclusion was that Mao had not been neutralized.

The Case for--. It was on this record in Asia and in Europe that Dean Acheson deserved to be judged. The debate roused considered and telling criticisms of his policy; it was also complicated by reckless, demagogic assaults from Senator Joe McCarthy, which were a national disgrace.

There was a case to be made for keeping Dean Acheson. His removal would deeply disturb Western Europe, which generally admires him and shares his distaste for involvement in Asia. Western Europe already has ample reason to regard the U.S., embroiled in its foreign policy debate, with uncertainty and bewilderment. Acheson is widely regarded as the most forceful man in the Cabinet. In the diplomatic arena, he is a skillful expositor of policies. Harry Truman leans heavily on Acheson for the knowledge of foreign affairs which he himself lacks. The entire Administration, including many of the top men in the Pentagon, has tardily but belligerently closed ranks around him.

The Albatross. The case against Dean Acheson was based primarily on his Asiatic policy. Assistant Secretary Dean Rusk uses a phrase--"the error of the fatal flaw." Says Rusk: "There are probably some major problems of international relations that are beyond human capacity to think through. There are hundreds of major premises pulling in all directions ... The policymaker is constantly haunted by the error of the fatal flaw."

On the record, there is no question that Acheson, more than anyone else in recent years, has determined U.S. foreign policy. On the record, that policy has disastrously failed in Asia. The misreading of the Red Chinese was an error which Acheson principally compounded, and for which he must take the responsibility.

Around the State Department, the old animus against Chiang Kai-shek still persists, for Chiang is the symbol of a mistake, hanging like the ancient mariner's albatross around the U.S. neck. The U.S. had shrunk from any embroilment in Asia. The Korean intervention was not actually Asiatic policy but a 180DEG turn from it; it was carried out to make a moral point. As a matter of basic policy, the U.S. had determined, as it did in World War II, that the place it would much prefer to fight, if it has to fight, is in Europe.

But that decision will be made in Moscow, not in Washington. And since the U.S. insists on minimizing Asia, why not (Stalin may reason) pick off the rest of Asia, starting with Korea, continuing with Indo-China, gobbling up Malaya and Indonesia, meanwhile rattling the saber in Europe to distract American effort?

In the patient Russians' slow, cold calendar, Asia may come first, Europe later. It may not be later than the U.S. thinks, but earlier.

The Diplomat. On the record, U.S. policy in Europe is in a crucial state of hesitation. U.S. citizens last week were suddenly voicing the distressed arguments of isolationism, provoked in part by the licking they were taking in Korea, but also by Western Europe's apparent paralysis of will. Acheson and the Administration could answer the isolationist arguments, and did, but they could not get around the fact of Western Europe's anguished resignation.

In all his negotiations with Western Europe's ministers, Acheson had been invariably punctilious and polite. He had argued untiringly, without raising his voice. But in the end, instead of pulling the conference up to his level, he had too frequently let himself be pulled down to the level of his hem-hawing, tiptoeing fellow conferees. And yet, among the North Atlantic nations, the U.S. was the dominant and also the indispensable power; its duty was to lead.

Economically, Western Europe had made great strides with U.S. help, but there was still the danger of Europe's being overrun by Red armies. Against this threat, after two long, critical years of interminable negotiating, Acheson and the foreign ministers had reached agreement at Brussels on military unity, and picked a supreme commander to lead a skeleton army. Western Europeans were war-weary, right next door to the enemy, and had good reason to be in a funk. The question was whether a different Secretary of State might have done more to rally them.

The Man In the Hamburg. No one who has observed Acheson under the attacks of his critics and the stresses of his job during the past year can fail to admire his steady, cold-steel nerve. He has held himself aloof from the brawling. His staff know him as calm, sane, considerate. He has generally kept his sense of humor in a turbulent world, sometimes opens a window on a frosty wit.

He possesses some of the intellectual arrogance of one of his chief critics--Robert Taft. He is a highly civilized man, an intellectual snob, with a snob's best qualities--stubborn convictions, a confidence in his own discrimination, and a certainty about his own judgment that would not let him turn his back on fellow Harvardman Alger Hiss, even after Hiss had been convicted. His famous Hiss remark (which he carefully rehearsed with aides before uttering to the press) is defended by his admirers as loyalty toward a friend, but it was the height of impropriety in a Secretary of State.

No blood, no sweat, no tears ever smudge the neat laundering of Acheson's sentences, or the mannerliness of his theories. Just as Europeans do not quite catch his urgency, the U.S. people--or at least a good many of them--cannot quite tune in on him.

The controversy over Acheson has intensified an atmosphere of disunity in the nation at a time when the U.S. is also engaged in another, deeper debate--about where its lines of defense really lie. Has Dean Acheson become such a political liability that in this time of crisis he constitutes a national danger? There are two practical answers now--either Dean Acheson must go, or events must move so fast that national unity, a vital necessity in a time like the present, will come perforce. It is the second answer that Harry Truman is apparently banking on.

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